


Wren

by ssfr



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 10:05:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17558336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssfr/pseuds/ssfr
Summary: It's 1 November 1992.The Gulf War is over.Wren ETS'd a bit ago, and is burning off her ETS leave in England.Why did those three leave a baby on that doorstep?





	Wren

**Author's Note:**

> So, a few things before we start:
> 
> This was written in 2007.
> 
> Harry isn't the most observant of narrators, and if it wasn't written in the first seven books, it isn't canon.
> 
> Wren is older, pays attention to different things, and expects people to be horrible sometimes.
> 
> She finds a lot of horrible things while she's looking.
> 
> She finds a lot of awesome things.
> 
> And she finds a lot of things that just make her go "Huh?"

1 November 1992

Now, it had not been long since he got out of the army, and having nothing better to do, he had gone to England, since home was dry and dusty and hot, not much like the parts of Kuwait and Iraq he had seen, really, but England was not anything like them at all, more like Panama, but colder, a paler green, and more dank than humid. He quite liked it, really. 

Since long before he had joined up, close to seven years before, one of his favorite pastimes was scrounging. He still had a couple months on his initial tourist visa, so she was still hoarding, and had yet to think about how to dispose of it when she had to leave. 

The short, thirtyish woman idly lifted the lid on yet another bin in Surrey, muttered `Garbage,' and let it fall again with a wrinkling of her nose. She walked off, wondering if there was an SCA event on or something, since there were a lot of people in garb, even if it was closer to Victorian than period. SCA people generally had more sense than to get up at dawn to carouse with mundanes, however.

The mundanes did not seem to have any clue what was going on, either.

The fireworks were nice, and the cat reading a map . . . _that_ was definately worth putting off a day of trash-picking for. With skill learned more wandering about in the woods to get away from his fellow soldiers than from the army, she followed the cat discreetly as she walked up Privet Drive to Number Four. 

Now the look on the man at the corner's face was nearly as amusing as the cat rechecking her map and nodding after she read the sign, so she thought it best not to be seen when he got back, so, once the cat jumped up onto the wall to watch the house she pulled her woodland camo field jacket on over her t-shirt, tucked her pack up under the only useful bit of concealment, a big bushy bush across the street, and spent a fairly boring morning surveilling the cat surveilling number four. Even with the wierdness of surveilling a cat, it gets boring quickly.

The woman of the house is horrid. The baby is spoiled and, somehow, mean already. She had not thought that was possible before, really. She credits being able to stay awake despite the dreadfully boring task to the army, and six years of dreadful annoyance and mild hassle. No one returned to the house she was in front of. The cat doesn't even flinch when an owl drifts up the street almost silently. At about 18 the car, and the man driving it, she saw at the corner that morning returned to number four, and she perked up when he tried to shoo the cat. The cat just tilted her head, and he stalked inside in a huff, slamming the door behind him.

Around half-past dark the cat turned from the house, and looked back towards the corner she could not see. Knowing that meant the cat could see her location as well, she did not turn to look.

A few hours later the streetlights went out, one at a time in sequence, before the blurry pale shape of a tall, white-bearded man walked up to sit next to the cat. He turned to her and said, `Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.'

The cat, she noticed, had by this time become a tall, slender woman with long black hair pulled back in a severe bun and a dark cloak. McGonagall, she guessed, replied, `How did you know it was me?'

`My dear Professor, I've never known a cat to sit so stiffly,' the man smirks a little.

`You'd be stiff too,' began the conversation, much of which she never could recall as well as she would have liked, full of names and ideas and references to "eleven years" and "muggles" and "Voldemort."

Less interesting at first glance and more important after a half-second's thought was `I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now.'

That got her attention, and she quite agreed with McGonagall's objection.

The mention of Hagrid and the flying motorcycle were even more fascinating, but she did not break cover. Serious Black? What a funny name, have to look him up sometime.

Hagrid, at least, seemed to have the proper idea about leaving any baby, but particularly a magical one, on _that_ doorstep, even if the other two, Dumbledore, that's right, the tall skinny git, managed to overrule him.

A ball of light flew up to the streetlight in front of her, and the light came back on. She watched the boy sleep until the sky started to lighten, then pulled herself and her ruck out from under the bush, yawned, stretched, adjusted her bra, then jiggered with her breasts until they hung mostly straight again. She walked up to the porch of Number Four and knelt next to the baby, and chuckled his cheek gently. He was at least a year old, she guessed, as he woke with a smile in sleepy green eyes.

She pushed her glasses up on her nose, `What are we going to do with you?' she asked.

He reached for her glasses, and wrapped strong little fingers around the finger she proffered instead. She sighed, `Maybe they won't be so horrible if they have to put up a bit of a fight for you,' she told him, then took her finger back. He pouted as she tied the drawstring at the bottom of her field jacket, zipped it halfway up, and snapped it to that point as well before carefully tucking the child inside.

The letter and blankets went into the pack, on top of the only treasure from yesterday, a 5.25" full-height computer hard drive she had found in the first dumpster. She was fairly sure it was MFM, and thought she had a controller that would work it, if it wasn't completely dead. She swung her pack up on her back.

`You OK? I didn't squish you, did I?' she asked him.

He smiled and giggled.

`Good. Now, lets go see what I have to do to keep you.'

She walked off towards the bus stop with more swagger and bounce than she needed, her half-empty pack jingling with each step, and little Harry laughing happily, fingers tight on her t-shirt.

2 November 1992

She jostled the baby in her coat, amazed he has not started crying once, smiled at him, which made him grin back, and looked up at the woman behind the counter, `I've got this baby,' she started, `And I need to know what I need to do to keep him.'

`What do you mean?' the woman behind the counter asked.

`I mean I watched him get left out on the front step about midnight, and watched him until dawn, and no one came out or gave any sign they were going to come out and get him, so I picked him up.'

`Really? Where did you pick him up?'

`They said they were his aunt and uncle, Dursley, I think. His name's Harry Potter.'

`Potter, Potter,' the children's services clerk tapped away at her computer for a moment, `Are you a witch?'

`Yes,' she lied.

`Then,' the clerk blinked at the computer, `I hate that statute, I need your name, an oath on your magic that you'll take care of him, and I can give you the paperwork,' the clerk tapped away some more.

`That's it?' she asked, `What if I'm one of Voldishort's followers?'

`You look too normal for that.'

She looked down at her BDU bottoms bloused into scuffed black boots, field jacket, and the pack at her feet, then back up at the clerk.

The clerk said, `They never wear muggle clothes, the pureblood bastards, and you've obviously worked in your life. I think you'll be good for him.'

`I'm not a British citizen.'

`We can work around that. Is resident alien good enough?' the clerk pulled a form out, and slid it across the desk, then followed it with a dozen others.

`Fill out the top sheet Miz,' the clerk said, looking for the nametape that is no longer on her field jacket.

`Do you want my real name, or the one on my passport?'

`Real name first, then the one on your passport in parenthesis.'

`Then the family name is Xom, and the personal name is Wren,' she ruffled her mouse brown hair, finally grown back out to neck length.

`The oath is as follows, "I swear on my magic that I will protect the boy I know as Harry Potter as if he was my own, blood, flesh and bone."'

`Do we need a witnes?' Wren asked.

`Mister Patil!' the clerk called.

A few minutes later, with the tall Indian man as witness, Wren Xom swore, then left to find her baby, and herself, breakfast, the paperwork tucked into her pack under the blankets.

x-x Questions:

How much hassle should Wren go through with the Ministry?

Did you know that one of the medics I've been working with's name is Zeller?

How long until the death eaters show up?

x-x

2 November 1992

She had forgotten, or never learned, she was not sure which, how much hassle feeding a small child could be. She got most of the oatmeal into him, and a bit of juice, but his face still needed washing afterwards. His diaper, rather amazingly, was still clean, and she frowned at him, `I hope that's because of magic.'

He smiled back, reaching for her hair. She let him play with it for a moment, then sat him down next to her in front of the coffee table of her flat, and started working on the stack of papers. She frowned, glanced at Harry, who was busily trying to eat one of her cargo-pocket buttons, and told him `I don't believe I'll be done with these before lunch. What would you like to eat?'

Harry continued to slobber on her button, smiling.

`Something green, then? Broccoli?' she frowned, `Are you old enough to eat mushy food, or does it still need to be mush? I'm glad you're weaned, though, because you'd be quite disappointed,' she glanced at her chest, shook her head, and went back to her paperwork.

Two pages later Harry gave up on the button, and got up on all four limbs, clumping over to one of the table legs before using it to pull himself to his feet. He returned Wren's smile, and looked up on top of the table for a few moments before he decided it was boring and took off for the other side of the room. Wren spent a moment contemplating the pile of computer parts he was headed for then followed him, `I know you slept all night, and I didn't, but if you don't calm down I'm going to have to find something else to do with you if I'm going to finish these damned papers.'

Harry grinned at her, slapping into the stack of computer chassis hands-first, then began to climb.

Wren slapped a hand down on top of it when it wobbled a bit, `Careful, you don't want those falling on you! You'd be squished!'

`Skished!' Harry smiled, tilting his head back to look, little hands holding firmly.

`Well, if you're climbing you shouldn't stop. Get up here.'

`Skished!' Harry repeated, and got to the top of the stack, about twice his own height. He could not find a handhold to get to the top of the stack, and whined in frustration, at which point Wren gathered him off.

`Sorry, kid, maybe later. Got to get that paperwork done.'

Harry protested as Wren walked back over to the table.

`Look, kid, you'll need to use words, I'm not proficient in baby yet,' Wren sat down indian style and tucked the baby into her lap, `Once we get this done,' she groans, filling in the same information as the last form in a different order, `We can go back, ask a couple questions, and turn these in, and then we can go to a park or something, OK?'

`OKay,' Harry said, then, a few pages later, `Bored.'

`Well, those are good words to know,' Wren told him, `Haven't got much in the way of baby-safe toys,' she glances around the flat, which is rather barren, even in comparison to his barracks rooms, which always had enough books to scare other soldiers, tools, and assorted things she was playing with.

She spotted the Rubik's Cube she'd spent the flight from America subduing, and smiled, `So long as I do't let you peel the corners off, it should be safe,' she told him. She got up, got it, brought it back, and proceeded to show him all the sides, `This is "solved." You can twist it about like so,' she gave it a quick scramble, `to mix it up, and then you put it back to normal. It takes me about ten hours still to get that, I'm probably missing something important, but I'm not sure what. You interested?'

A broad grin shows a lot of pink gum, and she handed him the toy. He could not turn it with his hands, and frowned, turning it over and over, then sucking on a corner for a moment, then braced it between his thighs and turned with both hands. That made it move, and he turned a triumphant grin up at Wren.

`Good, good. Almost half-done at this point, so if you can keep playing with that, we can get these turned in and go for some lunch.'

`Lunch?' Harry asked, looking up from the cube, which he had managed to scramble a little more.

`Lunch,' Wren nodded, `But not until after the paperwork's done.'

`Bad paperwook.'

`Paperwork,' Wren stressed it a bit.

`Paperwoak?'

`Urk. Paperwork.'

`Paperwork?' Harry tried again.

`Got it. Paperwork, forms, documents. Annoying stuff, whatever you call it.'

`Bad paperwork,' Harry repeated.

`Bad paperwork,' Wren agreed with a nod and a smile, then turned to write down her name again.

-x-

Wren dropped the pile of paperwork on, she looked around again, to see if she'd a nameplate or something, the clerk's desk.

The clerk looked up, `Mz. Xom,' she smiled, `There've been six people by looking to adopt that boy already,' she turned her attention to the pile of documents, `Any questions?'

`On the 1863, do you want home of record, current address, or what?'

-x-

`Thank you, Mz. Zeller,' Wren took her passport back, and tucked her resident alien cards inside it.

`We can arrange a passport with your real name on it, too, if you'd like,' Muriel said, smiling, `It might help you pass a little easier.'

`I,' she paused, `I'd like that. What,' she shook her head, `I don't know much about the magical community in Britain, could you recommend some books, and I should find a job, since I'll run out of money in a few months.'

`I,' Muriel paused, `I'll need to ask my wife, but we can probably have you over for dinner and take you to Diagon Alley afterwards. Would seven be good for you?'

Wren smiled broadly, `That'd be wonderful, thank you.'

`Do you have a phone?'

`Not at the moment, I hardly call anyone, so,' she shrugged.

`Here's my number, give us a call at about six, and we'll come pick you up,' The tall woman handed Wren a card.

`Thank you.'

Harry waved from inside Wren's jacket.

Wren smiled down at him, then asked Muriel, `How are my chances?'

`Pretty good. He was abandoned for eight hours, which under the old rules means he's yours, and under the new rules gives you first refusal. You started the paperwork at 7:30, when we opened for the day, so that shows due diligence, and had the paperwork done and filed by 11:00. I think the only way anyone's going to be able take him away from you will be to kill you,' Muriel shook her head, `And with You Know Who gone his followers should go to ground, but be careful anyway.'

`Thank you for the warning, Mz. Zeller.'

`You're very welcome.'

-x-

Wren set the squirming child down in the park, next to the monkey bars, and he promptly made for them with all haste, arms spread as he half-ran the six feet. The first crossbar was just over his head, but he made it easily, and the next. Two more and he was up almost level with Wren's face, and he grinned at her.

`Goodness, kid, and they said I was a climber. You keep that up and we'll have to build a cage for you to sleep in,' she half-joked, climbing through to the inside as he reached the top of the outside wall and started towards the higher center section.

He made it half-way before loosing his footing and swinging down by his hands.

Wren did not catch him, but reached out, ready to catch him if he needed it, `Whoops! Careful, I won't always be here to catch you, so, can you get back up, or do you need a rescue?'

Harry's face screwed up in consternation as he wiggled and kicked, trying to get more than his hands and chin back over the bar, six feet off the ground, `Hand!'

Wren cought one of his feet and supported it, `Like this?'

Harry pushed hard, and with Wren's help got back onto the bar, flopped across the top with a big grin on his face as he looks down at Wren, `Good.'

After an hour of climbing, including an unsuccessful attempt on one of the supporting legs for the swingset, Harry started to drag, then whine, then fell on his face, dead to the world, in the sand by the teeter-totter.

`Well, at least you're quiet and happy, kid,' Wren told Harry's sleeping form. She was half-tempted to pick him up by one ankle to see if he would wake, but controlled herself, settling the sleeping child on her hip as she started back towards her flat.

-x-

Wren had just passed the red phonebooth on the corner three blocks from her flat when two *POP* noises sounded behind her. She startled, diving for cover, the motion rendered awkward by Harry's soft weight on her hip. She rolled, setting Harry next to her before starting to her feet, embarrased, even as she looked for whatever she mistook for gunfire.

`Get the kid, Nott,' the taller of the two black-robed figures said, his face, like his companions', hidden behind a white mask.

Wren was quite sure they weren't there when she passed the phone booth.

Nott started towards her, and flicked the longish thing in his hand, starting to say, `Avad-'

Before the decision that anyone with the bad taste to try and scare anyone with a young kid on their hip deserves to get their ass whupped fully crystalized in her head, Wren had taken the three steps needed to put her shoulder into Nott's gut.

He slumped, groaning.

His friend yelled, `AVADRA KADABRA!' or something like it, and Wren twisted, putting Nott between them. A flicker of green covered the black-clad form on her shoulder, and he slumped, a look of shock on his face.

`REDUCTO!' the friend called, and a redish beam blows a chunk out of the sidewalk between Nott's feet. Wren blinked, punched Nott in the balls, and nodded once when he didn't even flinch.

Wren pulled the Spiderco Clipit from her hip pocket, flicked it open, then shoved Nott off towards his friend, flowing awkwardly around the falling corpse, knife held edge up, ready for a slash at the remaining enemy.

`REDUCTO!'

Wren did not quite manage to dodge, and flinched at the impact. She took the remaining two steps to the tall man remaining without looking to see the damage, slashing towards his belly. She was blackly amused to note why it hurt, as she bled all over his black robes, a soft jet of blood pulsing from between the shattered bones of her wrist, and grabbed his wand with her left hand, pulled down and away as she shifted her target and slammed the stump into his throat.

His hand opened convulsively as he gasped silently around his crushed trachea, blood flowing freely from the gashes left by the sharp bone.

`That fucking hurts,' she groaned, watching herself bleed. After a few seconds she put the wand in her pocket, grabbed her wrist firmly, and, with a moan, got it to stop bleeding.

`Bleeding as badly, anyway,' she muttered, watching the shiny red blood drip, `This is going to hurt soon, I'm sure,' she said, walking back over to Harry, `Tourniquet, tourniquet, yes, a tourniquet would be good.'

She dripped on him a moment, and he blinked back up at her, uncertain as to how he should respond, `Don't worry, Harry, I'll be fine. Well, if they don't throw me in jail for this, of course. Tourniquet. Belt, cravat, something wide, don't use bootlaces,' she muttered to herself, first aid classes flowing from her mouth as she stared dumbly at the scene, `Someone should have shown up by now,' she winced as her endophine high slipped a bit.

Harry was starting to look scared, so she turned to Nott, kicked him in the balls to make sure he wasn't going to cause trouble, then shoved his robe up with her foot. He had a belt.

Absurdly pleased, Wren dropped to her knees, using his belly for padding, and fumbled with his belt, getting it off after only a few seconds. It took her an uncomfortably long time to get the belt wrapped back around her arm, but she figured the puddle of blood could not be more than a pint or two.

She knelt there for a little while, long enough for Harry to walk up to her, watching the blood seep, dripping slowly down the belt. Harry looked up into her face, grabbing her hand, `Want Mama.'

`I'd like your mama, too, kid,' Wren told him, `She could get me to the hospital.'

`Hospital?'

`Hospital. They'd fix my hand,' she looked at her bleeding stump, suppressed the sudden pain-inspired urge to giggle, `Or at least bandage the stump,' she forced herself to her feet, rocking back and up, then swaying, everything going a little grey, well, black, really, but . . .

`Oh, there's my hand. Let's go pick it up, put it in my pocket, and call Mu-,' she shook her head, staggering a little as she led the boy over to the flattened shape, `Muriel, Um, Zeller, that nice woman from the office this morning. She's a witch, maybe they can put my hand back on,' she shivered, `And put some blood back in me,' she smiled at Harry, `You can keep what you've got on you, that's fine, but I need my hand for a moment.'

Harry shook his head and held on when she tried to free her left hand from his.

`I need that,' she pointed at her right hand with her chin, `and we need to call for help, since the cops still aren't here.'

Harry, reluctantly, let go of her hand, and she picked the cold one up off the street, and her clipit. The hand went into her cargo-pocket, and the clipit was closed and dumped in her hip pocket.

She held her hand out to Harry again, `Let's go make a phone call. If I pass out, don't go anywhere, OK?'

`OK,' Harry answered.

She nodded, satisfied by this answer, and led him into the phone booth.

She remembered looking up the phone number, and the awkwardness of trying to dial and hold the phone one handed, but after that all she remembered was waking up in a warm, dry bed, with Harry, Muriel, and a short, which, for Wren, was saying something, brown-haired woman watching over her.

`Wow, it doesn't hurt,' she enthused, clapping her hands in delight. She blinked, wiggled her fingers to watch them move, `That was an odd dream.'

`It wasn't,' Muriel told her, `You killed two Death Eaters, put a tourniquet on yourself, and called me for a rescue. We, and the Aurors, are very impressed.'

`I really would have prefered not to. I mean, I jumped into Panama, spent months in the fucking gulf, and managed not to see anyone I'd killed or what my insides look like, and it's not even the second month of my vacation yet.'

`You only killed one of them,' the short woman said, `You're damned near a squib, according to the healers, and Nott was hit with the Killing Curse-'

`That's the one that sounds like abra kadabra?'

Muriel flinched.

`Yes,' the other woman answered, `And a very strong one at that. Even Fudge's pet, Umbridge, couldn't pin it on you. Didn't stop her from trying, anyway.'

`Oh. What's the reducto one?'

`A blasting hex-'

`Ah. I'd kinda wondered what it felt like to get hit by an HE round. Guess I know now,' she laughed, `How'd they put it back on?'

`Magic,' Muriel shrugged, `I'm not a mediwitch, so I don't know the details, but they linked up the parts you had and grew the bits that weren't there. They'll be a bit pinker than the rest for a few days, then it should be good as new.'

Wren pulled her sleeve down, `Could they dye the skin? Like a tatoo, so as to remind me not to do it again? Just the new stuff?'

Muriel looked at the other woman, and Harry has slumped on Wren's belly, quite asleep. He stirred as Wren's stomach grumbled.

`What's the food like here, and when can I get out?'

-x-

`Oh,' Wren looked up from her curry, several hours later, and winced, `I never did ask your name,' she told the brown-haired woman.

`It's Elizabeth, actually,' she smiled, `I'm Muriel's wife.' 

A crooked grin broke out on Wren's face, `That's kinda awesome. Mine, as you've probably figured out by now, is Wren, and I'm quite pleased to meet you.'

She was distracted a moment as Harry made a surprised face after tasting her vegitable vindaloo, `Hot, isn't it?'

Harry nodded.

`I quite like it, how about you?'

Harry pondered a moment, then said, `Good,' gripping his spoon firmly.

`I'm glad you like it,' she smiled at him, then turned to Muriel and Elizabeth, `Now, I need some answers. I've only managed some minor ritual magic in my life, so,' she shrugged, `I have no fucking clue what's going on. What are death eaters, why do they want Harry, how did they find us, what's a squib, I hope my treatment's covered by NHS, but.'

Elizabeth and Muriel shared a glance, then Elizabeth started to explain, `I'm an Auror, that's like a muggle policeman,'

Wren nodded at the appropriate places, and eventually got an idea of what was going on, `So you've had a terrorist organization running rampant for better than ten years, an organization that marks its members in a magically identifiable manner, and the head of that organization just offed himself trying to get Harry three days ago? Why? Why were his folks hiding? What the fuck!'

Elizabeth snorted, `Exactly. There's reasons most of the muggle-born or muggle-raised kids end up outside the wizarding world sooner rather than later. There's this bunch of codgers who grew up before the first world war running things, and they wonder why nothing changes.'

`And they were tought by people who grew up before the bloody revolutionary war. The world has changed a lot since then, and they don't believe it,' Muriel snorted, suddenly, `And my parents,' she shook her head, `I think my grandmother's a witch, but both my parents were involved in the Manhattan Project,' she conjured a metalic sphere the size of a softball, `Trigger designate,' she tapped it with her wand, `Trigger arm,' she tapped it again.

Wren's eyes got even bigger as she watched.

`Trigger detonate,' she tapped it a third time, and it glowed a bright white as it, almost silently, imploded. It fell to the tabletop with a dull *thump* and deformed slightly, quickly fading to a normal white-hot, then red, the formica tabletop scorched and flaming under it, `I developed that spell in school. It took me a long time to figure out how to conjure weapons-grade, but _that_ is the kind of power we've got, and people waste it in little fights between factions of a faction. We've got less than thirty thousand wizarding world people in Britain. I don't have any idea how many people have been forced out, or how prevalent magic is, but,' she vanished the now dull grey spheroid, `Repairo!' she told the table top, leaving no sign of the damage but a smell of smoke.

`Wow,' Wren stared at the tabletop, `That's awesome, too,' she chased the last of her curry into a corner, then spooned it up. Dropping her spoon she looked at the two of them, `I need to get a handle on this,' she made a sweeping gesture, `Mess, if I'm going to keep Harry safe. I don't suppose the wizarding world knows about public libraries?'

Both of them shook their heads before Muriel answered, `Too fucking new. The closest thing is the school library at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore's horrible about letting non-students have access.'

`Dumbledore? Tall, skinny guy with a beard that's as long as I am tall?'

`That's him.'

`He's the one who left Harry on that doorstep.'

`Well, then that's out until after this legal mess is over,' Elizabeth said, `You'll need a solicitor, but under the code you're entitled to everything those two death eaters owned, and Harry's yours by right, since he was abandoned, and you've shed blood to protect him. I think I know someone who'll be willing, if you'd like me to contact him?'

`Please, I'd have no idea where to find a wizarding solicitor,' Wren checks the time, then looks at her other wrist, `but I know where I can find a tatoo place, at least, so I'll see you in the morning?'

`Let us walk you home, OK?' Muriel asked, after a glance at her wife.

`It'll take them a bit, even if I just get an outline and stiple.'

`Please?' Elizabeth asked.

Wren nodded, pushed her glasses up her nose, and gathered Harry, still, she noticed, in a clean diaper, onto her left hip.

3 November 1992

`Thank you again,' Wren said, `And sorry for keeping you out so late.'

`Call us in the morning, and we'll come pick you up,' Elizabeth said, then yawned, `At least Muriel doesn't have to work tomorrow, and I've only a half-shift.'

`I will, then. Thank you.'

Once they had gone, Wren tucked the sleeping child into her bed, and collapsed next to him, burying her face in her pillow with a whimper. What she wanted, really, was to crawl into someone's lap and be cuddled and cosseted, but she'd wanted that for years, so it sure was not likely to happen any time soon.

She curled into a ball and hugged her knees to her chest for a few minutes, but that was almost worse, so she gave up on that.

`I've got a bathtub,' she told the ceiling, then lay there for a while. A glance at her watch told her it was almost two, and she rolled off the bed, both boots hitting the floor with the same *thump*.

She shed them, and her pants, green wool socks, then sat, leaned back against the bed, in her t-shirt and underwear. A half-hearted glance at her watch told her it was nearly three when she got to her feet again, and she staggered to the bathroom. She ran the hot water over her hand for a minute, until it started to warm, then put in the plug. T-shirt, bra, the little stocking-bags of birdseed, the padded shorts, the gaff, all fell to the floor, and she kicked them into a pile a bit further from the tub.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, and barely supressed the sudden flush of rage, placing her spread fingers gently against it, rather than shattering it with her fist. The form in the mirror isn't bad, she told herself, just wrong. It was slim, and strong, and, as always, male. She blinked, swallowed, blinked again. She hadn't cried except when she was feeling sorry for herself in longer than she cared to think about.

She attacked the two-day long stubble viciously, pulling her face with one hand and the safety razor with the other, perversely amused that everyone who'd seen it assumed she had hag blood somewhere in her ancestry, and put it down to that. She bled from a couple spots when she finished, rubbed her face to feel for rough spots, and smiled at her reflection, momentarily triumphant.

The water was hot, almost scalding, and she twisted and wiggled, trying to fit all of herself under it. No success, knees, or feet, or too-slender hip kept protruding, and she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the bottom of the tub, her feet and ankles cold where they stuck out of the water.

Dried, dressed in gaff and t-shirt, and still inexplicably miserable, she hid her head under her pillow and tried to sleep.

-x-

A triple *POP* woke her, and she sat up, taking in the three blurred forms even as she lunged for the closest, closing her hand around his wand and shoving it away even as the wand she did not remember picking up touched his forehead.

`Reducto!' she ordered, imaging his brains scrambling as the blasting hex tore out from the region of his pituitary.

She swooned, drained, even as the man dropped silently and hit the floor with a carpet-muffled *thump*.

The third figure crumpled, dropping its wand, and the second pointed at her, `Avad-'

Wren cut him off, stabbing her wand sharply into the center of his throat with a tiny *crump*. She fell off the bed after him as he dropped, and she got her hand onto his chin to break her fall. Something gave with a wet, muffled *pop*, more like an uncooked chicken bone than a distant gunshot, and the man stopped flailing at her.

`No, no, no,' the last attacker whimpered in a surprisingly feminine voice. Harry gulped behind her, and started to cry.

This, peculiarly, centered Wren greatly, and she gathered up all the wands before she picked up Harry and settled him on her hip, bouncing gently to calm him. Wren held all four wands against Harry as she walked over to the light switch and turned the lights on, revealing the two corpses and sobbing dark-haired woman. The white mask was already on the floor in front of her, and she was struggling out of her robe, leaving her clad in what looked like a nightgown.

Harry calmed, gulping air even as he stopped sobbing, and twined his hands firmly in Wren's shirt, leaking tears and snot.

`I was starting to worry you didn't know how to cry, kid,' Wren told him.

Harry blinked up at her, still red-faced and puffy, and Wren ruffled his hair, `Are you OK now?'

`OK,' Harry nodded, sniffling.

`Good. Lets see if she can tell us what this is about, OK?'

Harry nodded again, then pressed his face back to Wren's shirt.

`Who are you?'

`Bellatrix Lestra-' she cut herself off, wiped her face on the robe she had shed, `Black, the Lestranges are all dead, so,' she shook her head, `No, I still belong to you, I guess. Honor, obey, support,' she threw back her head and laughed, crying again.

Wren sat on the end of her bed closest to Bellatrix, and looked at the girl, she could not be more than twenty, `What the fuck do you mean by that?'

`A pureblood girl's property as much as person, you know,' Bellatrix smiled nastily, `And a married woman's less than that, once the marriage contract's agreed on.'

`Contract? So you're something like an indentured servant, then?' Wren asked, pulling her feet up underneath her, then settled Harry in her lap.

`Something like that. My family got something from their family, and I got those two bastards, and their Dark Lord,' she turned her left arm to show the faded skull and snake mark on the inside of her forearm.

`I at least got a monthly salary, room, board, and training for six years of my life,' Wren told her, `Why do people agree to it?'

`Because,' she shrugged, `My middle sister didn't, and all that happened to her was she got disowned. Mum always made it out like it would be something much worse than that.'

`So it's an arrangement between families?'

`Yes.'

`Who's left? A lot of your people have been killed in this little altercation you've been having.'

Bellatrix cocks her head to the side, `The Lestranges are all gone now. Cissy's boy is the last Malfoy after yesterday, little Theo is the last Nott, that's the one's you did for. Crabbe, Goyle, and their boys, old man Parkinson's dead, and his boy didn't join, Rookwood, Avery, Dolohov, and Mulciber are still running around, but they don't have enough money or influence to get married, so they're the end of their lines . . . ' she trailed off.

`I meant in your family, and theirs,' Wren gestured at the corpses.

`The Blacks are almost gone, Regulus turned on the Dark Lord and was killed, I think they,' she gestured at the corpses, `killed my parents, and Regulus's father took a long walk off a short pier after Regulus was murdered. Sirius is in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit,' she laughed, a harsh, unamused sound.

`Oh? What was that?'

`It was in the paper today, didn't you read it? Pettigrew claimed he was the Potter's secret-keeper, and blew up a bunch of muggles to fake his death and frame my baby cousin. Stupid little rat.'

`When did this happen?'

`Yesterday.'

`And he's in Azkaban already?' Wren blinked, `And here I thought Article 15s went quick.'

`Oh, they skipped the trial, no need, they said, with all the witnesses.'

`Can you prove any of it?'

`Pettigrew's a death eater, and I was there when he told the Dark Lord where the Potters lived. Can't prove he didn't kill all the muggles, but,' she shrugged, `Nothing to be done about it now.'

`We'll see about that,' Wren said, and pulled out the wands, `Which one's yours?'

`The one on the left,' Bellatrix said, `Why?'

`I want an oath, on your magic, that you won't harm me, or Harry, except in reasonable self-defence.'

`You'll leave me a loophole that big? I could throw a muggle lorry through that.'

`I want your oath, kid, then you get your wand back.'

Bellatrix blinked, then nodded, `I swear, on my magic, that I will not harm you or yours or Harry, except in reasonable self-defence.'

A ripple shivered through the room, headed out into the world, and Wren smiled.

Bellatrix shivered, blinking, and dazedly accepted her wand back. Wren walked into the bathroom, set Harry on the closed seat of the commode, and pulled on shorts and bra. She hefted the little nylon bags of seed, frowned, then tucked them into her cups and pulled her shirt back on.

Bellatrix, she found, was magicking at the mark on her arm, `SCOURGIFY!' she said, quietly but intensely, her skin peeling off in bloody flakes without disturbing the mark perceptably.

`Stop,' Wren said. She set Harry down, then pulled her pants on, noticing, for the first time, that the left cargo pocket is still stiff and stained with her blood.

`I want it off. They're dead, I don't have to support them anymore, and I won't. I can't. They were going to go after Alice,' she turned to Wren, frantic, `I don't like Frank, but that,' she raised her wand again, `SCOURGIFY!' she yelled. The spell tore a pit in her arm, and it bled freely, the mark dark and malevolent on the shiny surface.

`Well, you can tell me about Alice later, but we've got two bodies to play with first,' Wren said, `Then if we need to we can go back to ripping holes in your arm. I'd prefer if you didn't do that over the carpet, anyway, I've got a two hundred quid damage deposit on this place.'

`Oh,' Bellatrix muttered `scourgify,' pointing her wand at the carpet. the blood vanished, `Better?' she asked.

`Good enough,' Wren flicked the Clipit open and cut the one with the broken neck's left sleeve open, exposing the mark, `The traditional methods for removing tatoos are covering them,'

`Won't work,' Bellatrix said, `He'd still be able to call us, it would still be there.'

`Yep. Flaying,' Wren cut into the man's arm, slashed deeply into the cooling flesh along three sides of the mark, then peeled his skin back. The mark stayed, separating from his skin as it was pulled away from his arm, `Which doesn't seem to work either, and dismemberment.'

Bellatrix mutters a word, and the arm dropped free in Wren's hands. The mark stayed on the arm, not floating in the air where the arm had been.

`That seems to work, but I'd think we'd want to cut closer to the mark, below the elbow, if we could-'

Bellatrix's slash with her wand cut Wren off, and a strong jet of arterial blood follows her forearm to the floor.

`Fuck!' Wren yelled, standing up and pressing herself to Bellatrix before she wrapped both hands around her upper arm, pressed hard against her brachial artery, and stopped the worst of the bleeding.

`Feel for your pulse, right where my thumbs are,' she ordered Bellatrix.

Bellatrix blinked down at the short woman, then obeyed. Wren checked the corpse at their feet for a belt, then slashed a length of black wool robe free, and wrapped it around Bellatrix's upper arm, since the stump end wasn't long enough to fit a tourniquet between the joint and the wound. Tied tight, it only took three twists of the wand she shoved through the knot to make the bright red bleeding stop, and she tied the wand to keep it from turning.

`Good,' Wren said, watching as Bellatrix let go, to see if she needed to tighten the tourniquet once manual pressure was released.

`We had another corpse to test it on,' Wren said, once she was reasonably sure that the girl wasn't going to bleed to death, `And I'da liked to have the tourniquet ready.'

`I didn't even think of that, I just wanted that dreadful thing off,' Bellatrix whimpered, then fell on her ass.

`Cut below the mark, too, it might save time at St. Mungo's.'

`What?'

`Not having to regrow all the delicate structures of your hand and wrist, kid.'

`Oh, right,' she said, then severed her hand and wrist from the forearm on the floor. She swayed and looked very woozy. Wren picked up the hand and put it in her cargo pocket.

Wren looked at Harry, wide-eyed on the bed, Bellatrix, nearly passed out on the floor, and around her flat, which didn't have a telephone, because she was not going to be in Britain long enough to bother, `I guess I need to get a phone,' she said, and tucked the wands in her pocket, clipped the Clipit back in place, then gathered Harry onto her right hip and looked down at Bellatrix, `Up, we've got a three block walk to the phonebooth.'

Bellatrix blinked up at her, then raised her stump, giggled, then raised her right hand.

Wren pulled her to her feet, and ducked under the arm to support her out the door. Somehow she got the door locked, all three of them down the stairs, into the grey, foggy pre-dawn London morning, and to the phone booth.

`Hello? Do you know what time it is? And what time we got in last night?' Wren thought the irate voice on the phone was Elizabeth.

`Yeah, and it took me almost four hours to get to sleep, and fucking death eaters woke me up at five fucking thirty,' Wren answered, `I've got two dead ones on the floor, and a defector who needs a lift to St. Mungo's.'

`What? Why?'

`She cut her arm off to remove the mark-'

`Where are you?'

`Same place as yesterday-'

*POP* `*click*' *POP*

Two women barely more dressed than Bellatrix appeared before Wren realized the phone had been hung up on the other end. Elizabeth gathered Wren into a hug even as she hung up the phone, and Muriel picked up Bellatrix. A moment later they appeared in the lobby, in front of the admission's witch.

Wren blinked at the posters, blurred to illegibility, then the less blurry face in front of her, and smiled down at Harry, `Forgot my glasses, I see.'

4 November 1992

`Sorry,' Wren smiled, `I get manic when I don't sleep, sometimes.'

The mediwitch blinked at her, wondering how Wren's brooding stare counted as "manic" but decided not to ask.

`How much longer will it be?' Wren poked at Bellatrix's arm, `This is taking longer than it did for me, and I've a solicitor I need to talk to.'

`You were unconscious for about five hours yesterday.'

`Oh, I thought I was misremembering it,' she turned to Muriel, Elizabeth had already left to bring the Aurors and pick up the dead bodies in her flat, `Could you call the solicitor? I don't want to leave her here, and bring me the papers for the last couple of days, if you could?'

Muriel smiled at her, `Elizabeth said she'd send Mister Howe here. I'll go check the lobby for the paper, though.'

`She'll just need to sit for a bit, I've got a stack of them,' the mediwitch says, `You did a good job with the tourniquet, I must say. I don't know many witches who'd risk a wand like that, though.'

`I don't much like that one,' Wren shrugged, `It seemed pissed off about something. Malfoy's wand is much more,' she trailed off, `Accomodating, I guess would be the word.'

`Oh, that would make sense, this was Nott's wand, then?'

`Yep.'

Wren petted the sleeping boy in her lap for a bit, then accepted the stack of newspapers, `What's your name, again? I've spent so much time in the Army I've sorta forgotten that people don't come with nametags in the real world.'

`I'm Gwenog Malvo,' the old woman smiled, `but you can just call me Gwen, everyone with any sense does.'

`Why's that?'

`'Cause my family disowned me about ninety years ago, and I'm the only one left,' she laughed, `and my daughters, anyway.'

`Why would Malfoy's wand be more accomodating than Notts? They're both dead,' Wren paused a moment, `And have you got any grandkids?'

`A few,' Gwen smiled, pulling a small bag out of her pocket, expanding it, and rifling through it as she spoke, `And the wand chooses the user. They'll often switch allegiance if their owner is defeated or they're stolen,' she pulled a massive photo album out of her bag, and flopped it down. Bellatrix and Wren both leaned in to look, and Muriel walked around behind Wren to look over her shoulder.

-x-

`What was that about?' Bellatrix asked, once Gwen had left, after being introduced to Elizabeth and the solicitor.

`It's always good to have a medic on your side, and just about everyone wants to talk up their grandkids,' Wren smiled at her, `If they've got them, anyway.'

`How very Slytherin of you,' Bellatrix smiled.

`What does that mean?'

One explanation of Hogwarts and the house system later, Wren frowned, thinking, `Well, I am very ambitious. I want to live in a world where I don't have to worry about my government, random terrorists, or evil wizards,' she laughed, `and I think that's sick, that that counts as ambitious.'

`Well, I can help with your ambition, I'm pretty sure,' Mister Howe said, `The last forty years have not been kind to the old pureblood families, and the attacks of the last few days,' he shook his head, `If they had challenged for a formal duel, they could have limited the stakes, but as it is, you're entitled to everything they owned, and, while not required, you're expected to look after their obligations.'

`What are those?' Wren asked.

`No way of telling until after the hearings,' he said, `But even without access to most of the Potter money, you'll be one of the richest people in Britain from any one of them.'

`Rudolphus Lestrange's vault has over three million Galeons in it. That was his school money. The family vault is even larger,' Bellatrix said, `It will be a hassle to get the protective charms reset, but once that occurs,' she shrugged.

`Good. Do you have access to his vault?' Wren asked, `I want to get your cousin out if he's innocent, and thirty million U.S. should be quite enough for that,' she turned back to Howe, `In fact, how many prisoners are there in Azkaban?'

`Over two hundred.'

`Can we afford to get them all new trials?'

`Probably,' Howe thought a moment, `Almost certainly. Most of them will be quite insane after spending so much time around the dementors.'

One explanation about dementors later, `I want the island empty, it sounds the perfect spot to test Muriel's experiment,' Wren smiled, `Particularly if they've been backing Runs-From-Death.'

Bellatrix broke out into gasping laughter almost instantly, but the rest took a bit longer. Harry woke, looked around, and started to cry.

`Hungry, kid?' Wren asked him.

He nodded, gulped, and pressed his face to Wren's belly.

`So'm I, so if Trixie's ready to go,' a smirk flickered in Wren's eyes at the new nickname, then died as Bellatrix started crying, `If you don't like that name I won't use it.'

Bellatrix smiled at the quick retraction, `It's cute, that's all. Sorry.' 

`Oh, and I want a forty-five, or even one of the awful Beretta nine mils. I'd prefer it to be above-board, but if I need to bribe someone,' Wren shrugged.

`Normal people in Britain would have a hard time managing that,' Muriel told her, `But I don't think it will be too difficult.'

`I'll need to talk to Section Nine,' Elizabeth nodded, `but it shouldn't take more than a couple days to get you on the rolls.'

`Section Nine?'

`They're part of Scotland Yard, and deal with magical things. After the recent trouble they'll cover you.'

`OK, let's go find Gwen, then feed the kids,' Wren picked up the pile of unread newspapers and Harry.

-x-

Over, sadly, army-grade pizza, Wren continued to quiz Mister Howe, Edmund, it eventually came out, and Elizabeth about "The War".

`Look,' Wren eventually said, `I just don't grasp the scale of this,' she slapped the paper, `The only magical school in the country has a total of less than six hundred students. My graduating class in high school had more people than that. The death toll in Panama was higher than the entire reported casualties of your war, and we killed over ten thousand Iraqis last year. This isn't,' she shook her head and changed the subject, `Who the fuck gave them Harry's description? Why the fuck do they have _mine_? What kind of idiot publishes the _victim's_ flat address?'

`The Daily Profit,' Muriel shook her head, `I noticed a correlation between people showing up in the paper and showing up dead, but-'

`Bagnold's all "freedom of the press," despite the fact that all we want is reasonable caution,' Elizabeth said, `They're the only wizarding daily left, so it's hard to put external pressure on them.'

`What're they worth?' Wren turned to Bellatrix, `Could Trixie buy them?'

Edmund blinked, `They've a circulation of about two thousand, at five knuts a paper, maybe one knut profit, that'd be four galleons a day profit on revenue of twenty galleons a day, so about 1400 galleons a year profit on revenue of about seven thousand galleons a year.'

`I would say that means "almost certainly,"' Bellatrix smiled, `That's about enough profit to keep a pretty girl, too.'

`So you like pretty girls, too?' Wren asked.

`Of course,' Bellatrix smiled, looking around the table, `Doesn't everyone?'

`Most muggles prefer the opposite sex,' Muriel said.

`Eww,' Edmund and Bellatrix said at the same time, then looked at each other.

`So most wizards like boys?' Wren asked, leaning back in her chair.

`Not most, no,' Elizabeth answered, `It seems to be about sixty-forty, actually. Witches have a much easier, well, maybe not easier, but less dangerous, time with childbirth, but wizards have a much higher birthrate than muggle males, so it doesn't just collapse.'

`That's sixty percent bi, and forty pretty much exclusive one way or the other,' Muriel elaborated, `Which is pretty close to the muggle numbers, actually,' she shrugged, `but there's more history, or acknowledged history, of queer wizards and witches. The last witch-king of England, Elizabeth the First, had a witch consort and six girls by her.'

`Wow,' Wren suddenly laughed, `I always liked her.'

-x-

`I want a tatoo too,' Bellatrix said, suddenly, after lunch, `Like yours, marking what you lost,' she touched the new, hairless, pink skin of her left forearm.

`That'll be kinda big,' Wren said, not quite discouraging.

`I don't want to forget,' Bellatrix said, `I've been a bit kinked all my life, but I think doing that to Alice would have broken me.' 

`So,' Wren shook her head, `Let me know later, but for now,' she shrugged, `I can offer you a place at my flat until we get the legalities settled, Trixie.'

`Thank you,' Bellatrix said, then held out a hand, `Show us to the tatoo shop?'

`Come along, then, pretty girl,' Wren took her hand, and led off.

Harry leaned out to smile at Bellatrix, and Wren had to shift her grip in order not to drop him.

Bellatrix put up with nearly an hour of prickly buzzing. She admired the simple bandage on her wrist outside the shop, `We'll match for a couple days, then,' she smiled before she threaded the fingers of her left hand into Wren's right.

Wren twitched, stopped, turned her gaze on Bellatrix before dropping it to their joined hands. She kept her gaze downcast, and blinked rapidly for several seconds before she regained her composure.

Muriel and Elizabeth exchanged a glance.

Bellatrix clenched the short woman's hand tightly in hers, then brought it up and kissed her knuckles lightly.

-x-

Wren stood and stared at the unstained brownish carpet, and didn't move until Harry started to wiggle, then set him down, and collapsed to sit cross-legged in the middle of floor. Bellatrix dithered behind her, then sat on the bed, watching with her as Harry climbed up next to her.

She blinked when Harry smiled up at her, and didn't move when he crawled into her lap and fell quite suddenly asleep.

Wren smiled tiredly, then flopped over on her back, `Lucky kid,' she said, `I'm never going to get the blood out of these bottoms, so I guess they'll get a black dye bath in a bit,' she yawned, brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she finished, then dropped it back, *thump* onto the floor, `Gotta get groceries, Harry'll need a bath eventually, I've got no clue about those self-cleaning diapers, how many kids are there in wizarding Britain, how many are his age, how fucking many death eaters are there,' she rambled, paused to yawn again.

`Come up here,' Bellatrix said, `Sleep, I'll sit watch.'

Wren rolled over, then pushed herself up onto her knees, `Is there a way to keep people from popping in like that?' She looked over to find that Bellatrix had scooted back against the headboard.

`Yes, but it's expensive.'

Wren staggered over to the bed and crawled onto it, `That's fine. How long does it take?'

`A day or two, I think.'

`Tomorrow, then. If anyone attacks, kill them and wake me up.'

`As you command,' Bellatrix smiled.

`Good night, Trixie,' Wren said, smiling. She buried her face deeper into her pillow, then pretended to sleep for several minutes before she actually was.

After Bellatrix was sure she was asleep she turned, and petted Wren's hair softly, `Thank you.'

-x-

Wren woke, realized that it was still light out and Harry had cuddled up to her side, and seriously contemplated not getting up for a while.

`What do you want for dinner?' Bellatrix asked.

Wren realized the extremely pleasant sensation was having her hair stroked, and whimpered, pulling away, `Whatever. I'll get up and cook in a bit.'

`Stay down, I think I can manage "whatever," it sounds simple enough.'

Wren half-giggled, smiled vaguely in Bellatrix's direction, `Don't burn down the building, and try not to smoke up my kitchen.' She listened to the muffled noise from the kitchen and cuddled about Harry, absurdly happy. "This is damned nice," she thought, and drifted in between sleep and wakefulness until Bellatrix called her in for dinner.

5 November 1992

`So your sister's late husband had,' Wren looked at the face the wrought-iron gate had formed, `questionable taste?'

`Oh, that was his father,' Bellatrix answered, leading the way, `The peacocks, however,' she gestured at the large white bird.

`Yeah, they're kinda tacky, too,' Wren agreed, maintaining a firm grip on Harry, who wanted down so he could explore. 

`Dobby!' Bellatrix yelled.

`You called, Missy Bellatrix?' a tiny humanoid appeared almost soundlessly at their feet.

Wren dropped to her knees, smiling, and set Harry down, `Hello,' she said, `This is Harry.'

Harry nodded, blinking up and smiling.

Great, wide, protruberant eyes stared at her, then turned to Bellatrix.

Bellatrix smiled at him, `She offed Rudolphus. She's a good witch. You should obey her before me.' 

He turned back to Wren, `Tell me how I may serve,' he bowed.

`As you wish,' Wren nodded back at him, held out her hand, `I'm Wren.'

Wide, frightened eyes turn to Bellatrix, who nodded, `She won't hurt you. Take her hand.'

He did, cupping it to bring to his lips.

She shook her head, `No, like this,' and shook his hand, `and tell me what you would have me call you.'

`I am Dobby.'

`Guard your Name better than that, Dobby,' she looked at the costume he is wearing, `I like your clothes, they're cute,' she told him.

`Dobby doesn't wear clothes! He's a good elf!' Dobby proclaimed firmly.

`Oh? Is it cloth?'

A nod.

`And you wear it?'

`But if an elf is given clothes he is a bad elf, a freed elf.'

`Did you take it, or did they give it to you?'

`They told me I could . . . ' Tears flood from his eyes and he starts to wail, banging his head on the ground.

Wren gathered him into her arms, and held the thrashing form in her lap as she sank off her heels, `Stop that.'

He stopped thrashing, but continued to sob, `So you need to look for a job, it's not that bad, is it?'

`A freed elf doesn't tend to live very long,' Bellatrix said, `They die rather miserable deaths, generally.'

`That's no good,' Wren said, `How much does an elf make?'

`House elves are kept, and passed down in families,' Bellatrix answered.

`Chattel slaves?' Wren shook her head, `Room, board, and a quid a week to start, for you and your children, on thirty days notice,' she offered Dobby.

`Notice?'

`If you want to leave, or I can't keep you, won't keep you, whatever, we have to tell the other thirty days before.'

`What is a quid?' Dobby asked.

`A pound, muggle money, about a sickle,' Bellatrix answered when Wren looked to her.

Dobby shook his head, his ears flopping, `Too much.'

`Room, board, clothes of my choice, and two quid a week.' Wren counter-offered, smiling.

`Room, board, and a quid a months.'

`Room, board, clothes, and six quid a month.'

`Room, board, clothes, and three quid a month.'

`Room, board, clothes, and five quid a month.'

`Room, board, clothes, and four quid,' a tiny smile twitched Dobby's lips as he tried to change the contract.

`Room, board, clothes, and four quid a month,' Wren held out her hand, `Shake on it?'

Dobby nodded, and shook, `Room, board, clothes, and four quid a month,' he pouted.

Wren pulled out her wallet and pulled out a twenty pound note, `Here you go, for this month and the next four.'

Dobby stared at it, and started crying again, `Wren is a great witch,' he managed. It was several minutes before he calmed enough to accept the note.

`Now that you're done stealing my house-elf,' a tall blonde woman looked down at them, a tiny boy staring at them from her arms, `Who are you?'

`Oh,' Wren stood up, then took the three steps to catch Harry, who had decided to investigate the other small human. She settled his unhappy form on her hip, then held out her hand, `Wren Xom, and you?'

`Narcissa Malfoy, unless you change that,' she looked Wren up and down, `Don't look like much, do you?'

`Never have,' Wren shrugged, `But I make up for my lack of stature and beauty with a whole lotta mean.'

`You'll need it, Tibbles has issued a formal challenge to keep me. Come along,' she turned and walked into the house.

`Tibbles?'

`Lucy's older brother,' Bellatrix said, `Another Death Eater.'

`Oh, fun,' Wren followed Narcissa into the house.

-x-

Dobby was watching Harry and Draco chase each other around, high pitched shrieks marking their activities.

Wren was sitting on her hands, her cup of tea cooling in front of her, as Bellatrix and Narcissa sat very close together. Their touching was a little more friendly than she expected. Wren watched, smiled, shook her head, and tried to banish the thought.

`So, what do you want?' Wren asked, glad some things had been explained. She had copies of the contracts in her cargo pocket, and was not looking forward to reading them, `I don't want to hear what you think I want to hear. What, pie in the sky, no limit, best of everything, do you want?'

Bellatrix looked to her sister, who looked back, then nodded. She turned to Wren, `Older sibs are supposed to resent their younger ones, but I always thought both of them were adorable, from when I was very small. When Cissy was six she told me she wanted to marry me when she grew up,' she shrugged, looking down at her knees, `So I want to be near her, so I can look out for her.'

`Until she married,' Narcissa shook her head, `She's always been the most important person in my life, and I love her more than anyone else other than Draco, and that's really close a lot of the time.'

Wren closed her eyes and put her head in her hands, elbows on her knees, whimpered, then spoke without looking up, `I suppose that's what you meant by kinked?'

`Yes,' Bellatrix said in a small voice.

`I'll do my damnedest, then,' Wren said, still not looking up, `But it would be best if most of your children had four grandparents. At least four grandparents. Who aren't related to each other would be nice.'

Bellatrix turned a gobsmacked expresion to face Narcissa's matching one, then surrendered to the hug her little sister dragged her into. She mumbled something into Narcissa's breast.

`What was that?' Wren asked, slumping back into her chair. She smiled at the sight, then shook her head and picked up her cup of tea.

`I've got most of a year left on the seven-year contraceptive potion I took before my last year of school,' Bellatrix said a bit more clearly, `So I won't have to worry about that for a few months.'

`Draco's been weaned for months,' Narcissa said, `If you're interested?' she asked Wren.

Wren blinked, and whimpered, and squirmed in her seat, `I hardly know you,' she smiled, `But thank you for the lovely offer.'

`You killed four death eaters in two days. You saved my sister and gave her back to me. I want to, please,' Narcissa locked her blue eyes on Wren's.

`No, but thank you,' Wren shook her head.

Narcissa got up and walked over in front of Wren, who was looking away. She dropped a hand on the chair arm and used the other to pull Wren's face up. Wren stared wide-eyed as Narcissa leaned in, and let them sag closed as she kissed her.

Hot tears were dripping down Wren's face when Narcissa pulled back, and she whimpered, pawing at them with the backs of her hands.

`I'm sorry,' Narcissa said, distraught, hovering, `I didn't mean to make you cry, that was horrible-'

`Was nice,' Wren shook her head, putting her hands on Narcissa's arms before gathering her very gently into a hug, `I liked it, but don't. Not 'cause I'm available, not 'cause you feel obligated, and definately,' she rubbed her hand over Narcissa's back, `definately not from pity.'

`Got some high standards, then?' Narcissa joked softly.

`I'm thirty-fucking-two, kid,' Wren said, `You're what, eighteen?' she asked, even though she thought she looked more like a young sixteen.

`Twenty-one,' Narcissa said primly, `Barely, but still.'

`So you're twenty-four?' Wren asked Bellatrix.

`Almost,' Bellatrix answered, then pushed her way into the hug.

`Your breasts rustle,' Narcissa said, rubbing her face on Wren's chest.

`Birdseed falsies. I'm really flat-chested.'

`We'll get you some better ones, then,' she said, `Unless you'd prefer a breast-enlargement potion? It only takes a few doses to figure out how much you need-'

`So that was why your roommates were always complaining about you stealing their bras?' Bellatrix smirked at her sister, then kissed her on the forehead.

Wren closed her eyes, and held them close, `If I've waited this long for the right girl, I can keep waiting. I'll accept pity-cuddles and obligation-cuddles, and available-cuddles, but only kiss me if you want to.'

Bellatrix pulled back, then leaned in and kissed Wren once she had opened her eyes.

Wren pulled her close and cried.

-x-

Wren walked the shelves of the Malfoy library, thick books of parchment, thin books of bible-leaf, shelved something close to randomly, without even the chaos of a Dewey Decimal system . . . but that is from the 1880s, or something like that. LC is even more recent. Half the books do not even have titles on the spines. The library is tiny, eight bookcases eight feet tall and fifteen feet long, with six shelves on each side.

Momentarily defeated, she turned back to Narcissa and Bellatrix, who each had a sleeping child on her shoulder, `I want history books, and theory, and law, user-level law, not solicitor-level.'

`I'll find you a couple,' Narcissa nodded.

-x-

Wren returned to Narcissa's room from utilizing the latrine.

Narcissa gestured her over, a little flushed, her eyes dark and smiling, her legs crossed and one foot swinging rhythmically.

Wren glanced at Bellatrix, who was apparently engaged in a game of pat-a-cake with the two boys, then walked over to the fidgeting blonde.

`May I kiss you?' Narcissa asked, then placed her hands on Wren's cheeks as she waited for the answer, her breath a little hard, a little rough.

`Yes,' Wren answered, a little entranced by the girl's face, the way her eyes glowed, her soft lips and flushed cheeks.

Narcissa's hands slipped up into Wren's hair, and pulled her close, thumbs stroking her cheeks as their lips met. Wren's lips parted easily, even eagerly, accepting the girl's tongue, glorying in the feeling.

Wren whimpered when Narcissa stiffened, clutched her close even as she broke the kiss, hot breath gasping over her cheek, a gentler version of the same weakness she felt the day before making her close her eyes and slump into the girl's lap. Narcissa relaxed, trailing gentle kisses over Wren's face and down her throat.

`Thank you,' Narcissa said, cuddled Wren close, kissed her brow.

`What was that?' Wren asked.

`Shh,' she nuzzled Wren's face up, then kissed her, `It's nothing to worry about.'

Wren drew herself up into the tightest ball she could, trying to fit herself into Narcissa's lap, and barely failed. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she fell asleep being cuddled.

-x-

To her intense mortification, Wren woke, stripped to t-shirt and gaff, to the soft sounds of the two girls trying to make love quietly, and only barely failing. A soft brush of smooth calf made her eyes snap open as she realized that they were under the covers with her, and a glance to the other side showed the sleeping boys cuddled against each other and her.

She watched the dark ceiling long after the girls fell asleep, one hand on Lucius's wand under her pillow.

6 November 1992

Wren dropped under the water, and blew bubbles for a moment before surfacing. The bath Dobby led her to was much larger than the tub at her flat, and she could fit all of herself under the water. The water was hot, too hot for annoying parts to be annoying. She watched the swirling steam and white ceiling while she thought. It wasn't like she'd fallen into a porn video . . . well, not much, even if last night did end up with two pretty sisters having sex. With a guy in the bed. Her breath caught, and she shook her head violently, splashing, as tears tried to form. She wanted to hit something, but settled for dunking her head under again, and blowing out as much air as she could. She stayed under, eyes closed, until she started getting desperate, then a few seconds longer. She sat up, shook her head, opened her eyes, then took a breath. She gasped and panted for a moment, then twisted and set her chin on the edge, looking towards the door.

Well, that was a fat lot of help. Wren gave the door a crooked smirk before pulling herself out of the bath.

-x-

Diagon Alley disappointed Wren horribly. That was, in large part, because of the fact that the war was declared over less than a week before, she hoped. The five of them walked over irregular cobbles between closed shops to Edmund Howe's office.

`Quality Quiddich Supplies,' Wren read off the sign. Harry smiled and reached for the broom displayed in the window, and Wren watched the moving pictures of witches and wizards on brooms, `So how does one make a flying broom?'

`Only the broom makers know, and they guard their secrets tightly.'

`Let me guess, everyone with a valuable secret guards it tightly,' Wren frowned, `Not secret, technique. Wand makers don't talk to broom makers and broom makers don't talk to carpet makers,' Wren turned to look at the girls.

`Flying carpets are illegal,' Narcissa said, `Have been since the 1750s. Supposedly it was to help indigenous carpet makers, but they got arrested and thrown in jail a couple years later.'

`And here I'd wondered why you were such a backward lot,' Wren shook her head, `Do we need to blow up parliment or something to fix that?'

`Blowing up the muggle parliment wouldn't help much, and I don't think you could blow up the Wizengamot,' Bellatrix laughed, suddenly, `That would take a mighty big boom.'

`Yes, it would. Do you have a broom? A flying one?'

Narcissa nodded, then followed as Wren turned and swept down the Alley. A few hundred meters down she had to pull up sharply as Wren stopped, a wide grin splitting the shorter woman's face, `What have we here?'

`Knockturn Alley. Good little witches don't go down there.'

`Oh?' Wren paused, then settled Harry on her hip. She thought about either handing Harry off to Bellatrix or making her take point, then decided that they needed more bodies and some practice before trying anything that ornate, `Bellatrix to my left, Narcissa, bring up the rear, if anyone attacks stop them.'

Draco squeeked when Narcissa gave him a squeeze, but the girls followed Wren into the Alley. They didn't get too far, Wren had to stop at every shop and talk to the shopkeeper, look through her, or occasionally his, wares, and repeatedly ask the girls, `Do you have one of these?' before drifting on.

At ten to eleven Wren glanced at her watch, having to shift Harry halfway to her other arm to do it, `We've got ten minutes, which way, Trixie?'

`Back to Diagon, then on the way we were going for a few minutes.'

`Guess we'll have to walk fast, then.' 

-x-

Edmund hands Wren her copies of the paperwork, and Wren looked them over, shocked, `So, there's no hearing, and no visit from a social worker-'

`What's a social worker?' Edmund interupted her.

`A person, generally a woman, trained and employed to look after people. They've got a rep as being not very good at it, but they can't suck too bad or they wouldn't get paid,' Wren paused, `Hopefully, anyway. But you filed the papers two days ago, and he's mine now? That's it?'

`Yep. Posession is nine-tenths of the law, and the last tenth is blood, and you've spilled, and lost, quite enough of that to cover it,' Edmund smiled, `Most magical ancestry rituals will show you as his mother because of that.'

Wren laughed, soft and bitter, `Well, that wasn't what I expected.'

Bellatrix brought her eyes up to meet Narcissa's, darkly concerned, then she turned to Edmund, `And what did the Profit say about a possible buyout?'

`Nothing helpful. The owner's obsfrucated for his protection, since Mister Dalton was killed in a death eater attack five years ago,' he looked at his hands, `But the manager said there was a definate possibility of interest, and he'd bring it up with the owner. Nothing for a few months, at the earliest.'

`What about weekly or monthly papers? Wireless stations?' Wren asked.

Edmund and the girls quickly compiled a list, which Wren put in a cargo pocket.

`How much trouble is it to create a new wireless station? We could play muggle music, and have wizarding-friendly muggle places advertise in it.'

`That might work,' Edmund made a few notes.

`Any progress on the Sirius matter?' Wren said, after going over the points she'd wanted to talk about on her fingers.

`We, well, me representing you, if that's alright,' he continued after Wren's nod, `Put in a petition as the injured party,' he looked particularly at Harry, and Wren nodded again, `To have him tried under Veritasium. If he's guilty, we'll be able to take, since he's the last remaining male Black, everything but the house his mother is living in and two hundred galleons a year for her upkeep.'

Narcissa gasped.

Wren glanced at her, then turned back to Edmund, `I'm guessing that's a lot, then?'

`They made the Lestranges look poor.'

Wren slumped, then flopped back in her chair and addressed the ceiling, `So, we've been stiffling innovation, consolidating wealth, have a legal system that's barbaric, no, that's an insult to the barbarians, no offense, Edmund.'

`None taken.'

`A population that would vanish into any small town in America larger than Shakespeare, New Mexico,' she looked at Bellatrix, `Population two,' then back at the ceiling, `And you've been having terrorists run around killing people fairly openly for better than ten years. At least money's real easy to get around here, maybe we can spread it around a bit. Oh,' she sat up, looking at Edmund again, `What's the status on the estates of the four death eaters?'

`There's no one left to contest the Lestrange estate, if Miss Bellatrix doesn't,' Bellatrix shook her head, `The Nott widow wants to talk to you, and the late Mister Malfoy's younger half-brother-'

`Tibbles,' Narcissa snarled, her jaw clenching.

`Yes, Tibbles, wants her, the house, and the money, but is fine with letting you keep, how did he put it, "The Brat."'

`Well, I don't think we want him to have any of it. Do we have access to the main Lestrange vault?'

`Not yet, but the documents are filed, and should be back next week.'

`Any other Notts than the widow I need to worry about?'

`No, they're all dead.'

`If this Dark Lord Runs-From-Death was so anti-muggle, how come we've got 81(?) million muggles in Britain, and none of the purebloods I've met yet have grandparents? Most of them don't even have parents, but if witches tend to live to a hundred and seventy to a hundred and eighty, we should be about drowning in old women.'

`Witches tend not to live that long. Most pureblood witches, at least the ones from "good" families, are insane by the age of seventy or eighty. Widows and spinsters, for some reason,' Bellatrix gave Wren a crooked smile, `Tend to live to that hundred and eighty mark you mentioned.'

`Oh?' Wren frowned, `Where can I get the numbers on that?'

`Get the numbers?' all three of them look confused, but Narcissa asked the question.

`Statistics?' at the continued blank looks Wren waxed pendantic on a subject even she had to admit she was not the best at, and eventually got something like the point across, `So if we can show that witches who've been married with coercive clauses in the wedding contracts are actually harmed by them, we might be able to illegalize the practice, or enforce it if it's already illegal.'

`And, using these "Statistics," we can show a court, say, that werewolves are less dangerous than broomsticks, and don't need such heavy control . . . '

Wren shrugged, `One can lie with numbers just as easily as with words, but the methods are different. If the data is off, then the result will be wrong.'

A discussion on the fun and exciting things than can be done with lies, damned lies, and statistics followed.

`I think the data, if we look at it, will show that Runs-from-death wanted to destroy the wizarding world, and his going after muggles was just a ruse to hide it. The muggles certainly haven't noticed.'

`That'd be the obliviator's doing, probably,' Edmund said.

Wren looked at him for a moment, waiting, then said, `Which are?'

`They erase or change people's memories.'

`Is this a difficult or dangerous spell?'

`Only if you care about damaging the subject,' Bellatrix said, `There's little danger for the caster.'

`Oh _joy_,' Wren looked at the ceiling again, `So any Tom, Dick, or Harry can just fuck with anyones memories? Do you at least need special equipment?'

`No.'

`Can we tell when someone's been obliviatored?'

`There's a spell, but-'

`Can we unobliviator somone? Give them their memories back, restore modified ones?'

`Somewhat. Recently obliviated things can be restored fairly easily, and modified memories are restorable for much longer than erased ones.'

`Twenty thousand, how long does it take to check if someone's been obliviatored?'

`Five minutes.'

`And to give them their memories back, if it can be done?'

`Anywhere from half an hour to four or five hours.'

`And the average?'

Blank looks.

`Most commonly?'

`An hour, hour and a half.'

`How long does it take to teach someone to check for obliviatoring?'

`Simple obliviation? A couple hours. Careful work by a skilled obliviator you need some experience to detect.'

`So, twenty thousand, five minutes each, that's a hundred thousand minutes, eight hours a day . . . '

Edmund spoke up while she was chasing the numbers, `Just over two hundred days, for one person. Get five teams of five, and we can have everyone in the wizarding world screened in days.'

`And everyone who's left it over time. If even a quarter, five thousand, have been obliviatored, we'll need fifty skilled people for months. How much would that cost?'

`The twenty-five screeners we could have for probably five thousand galleons for the week. The skilled people will probably cost about three hundred galleons a week each.'

`Petty change. Can we break coercive charms and clauses at the same time?' Wren smiled.

Edmund smiled back, `That could tear wizarding Britain apart. Curse breakers run about five hundred a week, and I have no idea how many of them we'd need.'

`Start with two per screening team, and have more on retainer if we need them,' Narcissa nodded, sharply, smiling, `Happy witches don't join dark lords.'

`Anti-obliviatoring magic? Is there any?' Wren asked, `Could we do it area-affect, or does it have to be subject-specific?'

`That sounds like something wards might be good for,' Bellatrix shrugged, `All I ever learned about them was how to break them.'

`Well, we've got something, then,' Wren smiled still looking up at the ceiling, `We won't be able to prevent determined people, but this casual shit's gotta stop. Can we tell who obliviatored someone?'

`Sometimes, but not always.'

`Sometimes is better than never, particularly if we can spin it to "most of the time,"' Wren sat up, then stood, collected Harry from where he and Draco were stacking blocks. Well, Harry stacked and Draco knocked down, but they had not come to blows yet, `We'll see you next Friday?' she asked Edmund.

`We might be able to swing a trial for Sirius by Wednesday.'

`Damn, you guys move fast,' Wren smiled, `Have some curse breakers there to look him over for coercives or other magic.'

`That's a very good idea.'

-x-

On the way out Wren was distracted by the sight of Ollivanders, and dragged the other two inside, `Hello?'

`Hello, child, I haven't seen you before.'

`It's my first time,' she smiled at the old man, `I just wanted to waste your time talking about history a bit.'

`Oh?' he asked.

`Your sign says you've been open for a long time, has that been in the same spot?'

`No, no, no, we moved to England when the Romans chased us out of Gaul, and we were there because the Athenians had gotten horrible, and chased us out of Greece.'

`Wow,' Wren smiled brightly, impressed, `So when was this shop built?'

`Sixteen twelve, before the great fire,' He gestured around, proud, `This building has stood on this spot ever since. Most of Diagon Alley was built up around it in the sixteen seventies.'

`Neat,' Wren pulled Malfoy's wand out of her hip pocket, and showed it to Ollivander, who recognized it instantly. Once he'd stopped mumbling about it, she asked, `I killed him, so this has decided it's now my wand, right?'

Ollivander nodded.

`Now, is there a difference in the spells you can cast with different wands? Does a wand that's been stored for five or six hundred years have the same spells as a wand that was made last year?'

`A spell, as you've guessed, is charmed into the wand, and you use your magic to power the spell, and the incantation and gestures to tell the wand which spell to use, and sometimes for aiming the spell,' he looked a little sad, `We haven't added any new spells to a standard wand in almost four hundred years, ever since the great purge of 1595, following the second Goblin rebellion. There are hundreds of spells that used to be common and are now illegal.'

`What do they do, these illegal spells?'

`All sorts of things. Cure muggles of the Plague, repair a person's magical core, turn witches into wizards and back again.'

`Interesting,' Wren said, `And they've not put any new spells in since the purge? Why not?'

`Mostly because all of the good, well, skillful, spell-crafters were killed during the purge, and they've been careful to keep anyone from learning how since.'

Wren looked at the surprised faces of Bellatrix and Narcissa, then back to Ollivander, `And why are you telling this to me? They obviously don't know it.'

`Because I've got a compulsion on me that says I can't tell muggles, someone who hasn't got a wand, or someone who's acquired a wand from me,' he smiled, `But you have a wand, but not from me, so I can tell you.'

`Trixie, could we,' Wren stopped at the look on Ollivander's face, `Thank you for this enlightening talk, Mister Ollivander.'

`You are most welcome, Miz Xom.'

Wren cocked her head in bemusement, then straightened and smiled, `I'll see you some other time, then?'

`That would be fine. Have fun shopping,' Ollivander shook her hand, and she lead the way out of the shop again, tucking Lucius's wand back into her pocket.

`So sex-change spells are illegal, but memory erasing ones aren't. Bah, Humbug,' Wren grumbled.

On the way back out Wren noticed the bookshop, and led the way in, asked the young woman behind the counter, `Do you have a good overview of the wizarding world? Something to help someone who's spent most of their life with muggles would be good, and a book for witch children. One for wizard children would be nice, if it's different than the one for witch children.'

She was shown to the proper sections, and dug through for several minutes, selecting several books. On her way back she found a copy of "Who's Who of Hogwarts students, 1920-1980," and tossed that in the pile after flipping through it for a moment, seeing several familiar names. 

Bellatrix shrunk their purchases, and Wren tossed them in her cargo pockets, where they bulged and rubbed at her knees. She mostly ignored the minor discomfort.

-x-

After dinner Wren insisted on a bed of her own, and sat on it, the two little boys asleep beside her, as she threw ideas at Narcissa and Bellatrix, `So, we want to,' she flopped over on her back, `We need henches, and minions. How much do they cost?'

`Henches?' Bellatrix asked, confused.

`A henchman, or henchwoman, or henchwench, is a person you can trust to accomplish well-defined tasks. A minion is good for more difficult things. Minions would hire medics and oversee training obliviator-screeners. Henches provide security and keep them safe.'

`We just hire them?'

`Well, we should try to make sure they're not plants, but yeah, pretty much.'

`I know some people who might be interested,' Bellatrix smiled, suddenly, `Several of my fellows were brought into my,' she paused, `Former organization, shall we say, under false pretences, or at least misleading ones. They are . . . dissatisfied by the results.'

`If you trust them, contact them. Obliviator them or kill them, whichever is safer, should they prove unsuitible. If they're suitible, make sure they get healed after the mark is removed.'

8 11 November 1992

`Miss Carrow?' Wren asked Alecto carefully.

Alecto looked up, blushed, and looked down again, `Yes, Miss Xom?'

`Leave off the miss, if you're gonna use my last name, or call me Wren,' she shook her head, `Am I that scary?'

`No,' Alecto shook her head, somehow slouching even smaller than normal, `Nothing like that.'

`Then what's wrong?' Wren dropped down on her heels, looking up into Alecto's face.

`Nothing,' Alecto lied, blushing and looking away.

`Are you lying to me, or to yourself?'

`Just you,' Alecto's hands twined around each other, white-knuckled.

`If,' Wren went silent for a moment, then dropped to sit tailor-style, kneadded at her calf a moment, `What you don't let me know about I can't do anything useful about.'

`You can't do anything about it, anyway.'

Wren looked up, and caught Alecto's eye, `Then it shouldn't hurt to tell me, should it?'

`I think you're lovely,' Alecto blurted out, then spun on her feet and bolted.

Wren, cought flat-footed, watched the witch's awkward run for a moment, then rolled to her feet and sprinted after her. She overtook the other witch, slowed to run alongside, and asked, `Why would a cute witch telling me she thinks I'm nice be reason to bolt?'

Alecto staggered to a stop, swaying, and turned incredulous eyes up at Wren, `I'm not cute.'

Wren just looked back at her.

`I'm fat, and ugly, and a hunchback, and my _face_ . . . ' she trailed off, staring at Wren.

`How much do you weigh?' Wren asked. She sat down and patted the ground next to her.

Alecto sat next to her, and answered in a small voice, `Six stone.'

`Am I fat?'

`No, not at all!'

`I weigh nine stone, you know,' Wren said, `And my jaw's too square, and my hairline's receeding as I go bald, and I stuff my bra because otherwise,' Wren drew her bladed hand straight down in front of her, `When my belly doesn't stick out further than that. I know, up here,' she rapped her knuckles on her temple, `That I'm not nearly as unattractive as I see myself, but I don't really believe it,' she turned towards the little witch, `I think, for what it's worth, that you've got a lovely nose, and your face is a very nice shape, and your eyes are lovely,' she reached out, and cupped Alecto's acne-blotched cheek in her hand.

Alecto rubbed her face against Wren's hand, `I think it's huge and hooked and awful, and no matter what I do to my face it's always broken out like this, and I can't even look a tall person in the eyes without leaning back,' she blinked, wetness glittering in her lashes.

`A witch should have a properly hooked nose, not a non-descript wide little thing like mine,' Wren drew her hand back, not breaking contact, to carress Alecto's nose, `And yours is about perfect.'

`Your nose isn't wide,' Alecto contradicted her, `It's not a skinny one like Narcissa's, but it isn't wide, either.'

`See what I mean?' Wren slid her hand down to Alecto's shoulder, leaning back a bit, `You think I'm cute, I think you're cute, and we both think we're ugly,' she smiled a crooked smile.

`Well, if I'm cute,' Alecto said, `You shouldn't mind this,' she cupped one hand behind Wren's head, then leaned in and kissed her, a soft, chaste, lingering, closed-mouth kiss.

Wren smiled when Alecto broke the kiss, `I don't.'

`Good,' Alecto sat back, then leaned up against Wren's shoulder. After a moment she picked up Wren's hand in both of hers, and examined it closely, compared it to her own. Wren's nails were short, unpolished, and irregular, each of her fingers was scarred, and her palms were broad, Alecto's palm only covered Wren's to her pinky. Alecto's fingers were slender but long, as long as Wren's, and Wren smiled at the mint-green polish on her nails.

After a bit Alecto dropped her hands to her lap, still holding Wren's. Wren twisted to look at her, only to find that Alecto was asleep, a contented smile on her face for the first time since Wren had met her.

Wren sat there until dinner, letting Alecto sleep.

13 November 1992

Wren rolled out of bed to the happy sounds of Bellatrix and Narcissa trying to be quiet, glanced at the sleeping boys, then collected wand and pistol belt from under her pillow. The belt clicked around her waist over her shirt, and the .45 settled, a comforting weight on her hip. Mostly awake by that time, she walked to the washroom.

A few minutes later, shaved, she walked back, and dressed. 

She raised an eyebrow when the other four finally made it down to the breakfast table, nearly forty minutes later, and got a blush from Bellatrix.

That got the expected teasing from the minions. Severus, Wren had yet to get him to use anything close to Sam, started off with a dry, `Having a good morning, are we?'

Alecto laughed, and Amicius scowled down at his plate. Bellatrix smiled, `Yes, actually. We need to find you a girlfriend, don't we?'

`Probably,' Wren said, `And Alecto, as well?'

Alecto stammered something that isn't quite a denial, and Amicius scowled harder, his fork grinding against his plate.

`Amicius,' Narcissa growled, `I would appreciate it if you didn't damage my plates too badly. Do you prefer girls or boys?'

`Blokes,' He grumbled, `Not that I'd ever get any.'

`You're not that hard on the eyes,' Wren demured, `If I fancied blokes you'd be shaggable,' she thoughtfully didn't add "in the dark with a bag over my head," since she was sure that would be uncharitable, and put him into an even worse snit than normal. `And making someone pretty's just expensive, not illegal, so,' she shrugged, `We could give you an advance on your pay to cover it, if you want.'

Amicius's head jerked up, and he stared at her, `What?'

`I'm going to cover some of it anyway, since both of you are annoyingly recognizeable right now, so unless you object I'm going to cover the spinal work and straightening,' Wren stuffed a triangle of pancake into her mouth to keep from having to talk for a moment.

`Oh,' Alecto started to cry, and Wren looked up at her. Amicius just continued to stare, eyes wide, jaw dropped.

`What?' Wren asked softly when she'd swallowed, `What's wrong?'

`Nothing,' Alecto said, continuing to cry, `But it costs so much,' she hickupped, `We'd never be able to pay you back,' somehow she managed to look even more distressed than before.

`It's about ten thousand galleons,' Wren shrugged, `So, no, it isn't cheap, but it's hardly going to break us. The hearings about the Nott, Malfoy, and Lestrange monies are next month. If I get any of those, much less all of them, I'll be able to pay that much every day for the next fifteen years,' she suddenly turned to Narcissa, `Has Nott's wife replied back yet?'

`Not yet. Shall we visit Sunday if we haven't recieved an answer by then?'

`Lets,' Wren agreed, then turned back to the Carrows, `You're my people, so I need to look after you,' she shrugged, `On less emotional subjects, how many of the Death Eaters are left?'

`Rookwood and Macnair were yesterday, Karkarov is in hiding, Pettigrew as well,' Bellatrix suddenly smiled, `That's all that are left of the death eaters.'

`So,' Wren smiled, `We, being two witches and a squib, destroyed a terrorist organization that had been terrorizing the Wizarding World for over a decade,' she shook her head, `There's something very wrong with that, even with our inside information. We've got Sirius's trial Wednesday, and Edmund's managed to convince the Ministry to transfer most of the prisoners out of Azkaban to,' she paused, `Recover, before their trials. That will leave ten human guards, and four prisoners who's terms are up in the next month so they won't get tried. I've got hypothetical agreement from,' she cocked her head to one side, `the explosives expert, and she's found us a betacam operator, so we'll be able to show our demands. I'll try to write up a script, and we can practice a couple times, with the costumes.'

`What does V.A. stand for?' Amicius, less sullen than Wren had ever seen him, asked.

`Veterans Affairs, Vengence Association, Voldemort's Antithesis, what the fuck ever. It doesn't really mean anything, but they'll spend lots of time trying to figure it out,' she suddenly smiled, `And I've got the perfect logo,' she laughed, `It's trademarked, but we don't have to worry about that, since we're operating outside the law anyway.'

`Outside the law,' Alecto frowned a bit, `That's such a polite way of saying illegal.'

`Umm Hmmph,' Wren agreed, `It's not like your former organization was much concerned about legal or moral qualms,' she smiled, `We've, or at least I've, got ethical qualms to keep us safe, even if we don't have legal ones.'

Severus laughed bitterly, `If I had ethical qualms earlier, he,' he pointed at Harry with his chin, `Would still have a mother.'

`Perhaps, perhaps not. If the fucking Wizarding World believed in ethics, she might have two,' Wren's fist clenched, and her plate shattered.

`Help?' she asked, forking the last bit of pancake out of the mess.

`Reparo,' Amicius fixed the plate.

-*-

It took a few hours for the preliminary examinations, then nearly another hour to get appointments for the Carrow's surgery, but enough money was eventually dropped on the healer's desk to bring the wait down from months to weeks. After that the minions were sent to recruit henches, and a medic-minion.

Wren, the girls, and the babies went to visit Muriel at her work.

After over two hours of hassling the customers and making Muriel's work harder, if more amusing, it was her lunch break. 

`So,' Wren asked again, `What are we going to feed you?'

`Well, there's curry,' she frowned, `But I've had that twice this week already, thanks to somebody,' she arched an eyebrow, cutting her eyes towards Wren, `So I think I want,' she trailed off, `Oh, heck with it, have you had fish and chips yet?'

`No,' Wren shook her head, and was amused to see Narcissa do so as well.

`Careful,' Wren told Harry a few minutes later, handing him his food, `It's still kinda hot.'

`Hot,' Harry nodded, taking the paper cone in both hands. His attempt to copy Wren's technique of blowing on her food as she bit it was only partly successful, but he persevered. Muriel settled on Wren's other side, and Narcissa and Bellatrix flanked Draco on the bench across the park path. They carefully watched the area.

Wren turned to Muriel, `So, Edmund has, in a move that I'd say was impossibly fast out in the real world, managed to get all ninety of the prisoners who aren't being released at the end of the month new trials, in some cases first trials. They'll be moved off Azkaban starting tomorrow, and will be in Ministry holding cells recovering. Their trials start next Friday, and Azkaban will be down to ten guards and four prisoners Wednesday. I need to find five henches by then, but that shouldn't be a problem, I've got the minions on it.'

`Henches?' Muriel laughed, `and minions? So you're the new dark lady?'

`No, I'm just a girl with too much money and too much to do, so,' she shrugged, `Besides, it's what,' she paused to watch Harry wave a chip for several seconds before he decided it was cool enough to eat and stuffed it in his mouth, `They are, so,' her shoulders twitched in another half-shrug.

`So you, the henches, the minions, and me-'

`And the cameraperson,' Wren broke in.

`And the cameragirl, will take the boat, assault the island, capture the guards and prisoners, then nuke it along with the dementors?'

`Yep!' Wren nodded decisively, `I've even got the costumes for everyone!'

`Costumes?'

`Right, can't have us recognized, so I've acquired enough polyjuice for all of us, and one of the minions managed to get a hair sample from Princess Diana for you and from the Queen for me.'

Muriel just gaped, amazed at the affrontery, then smiled, `And the muggles will think it's makeup, the Wizards will know it's polyjuice, but neither will have any idea who it really is.'

`I've got black BDUs for everyone, and I've ordered the unit patches, they're due in Monday. Nametapes are coming to a different address, and Alecto says she can sew all of them on in one night, so we'll be ready to go Wednesday evening after Sirius's trial.'

`What do the nametapes say?'

`Dumbledore or Bagnold,' Wren smiled, `I'm not sure if I should be Dumbledore or Bagnold, but the rest of you should wear the other.'

Muriel laughed, `Maybe you should wear Windsor and the rest of us Stewart.'

`Grindelwald.'

`Pott.'

`Duvalier.'

`Hoover.'

`Stalin,' Wren laughed, `Next time. For now we'll go with what I've got.'

`OK. Elizabeth "doesn't know" about this, and would really prefer not to, so don't get us caught, OK?'

`I don't want to get caught with a real, live atomic bomb either, so,' Wren shrugged, `I'll do my best.'

`Thanks,' Muriel leaned over and gave the smaller woman a hug before she stood and walked back to work, crumbling the greasy newspaper cone before she threw it away.

`You're welcome,' Wren said to her back, then ate her last chunk of fish.

-*-

`This,' Alecto smiled, happier than Wren had ever seen her, `Is Poppy Pomfrey. She's a member of the Order of the Phoenix,' Poppy started at this, `And one of the most skillful general medics I've ever had work on me.'

`Really?' Wren smiled up at the just slightly taller woman, `How did that happen?' she asked Poppy.

`I'm the school mediwitch at Hogwarts.'

`Which explains how you ended up in the Order,' Wren nodded, `So why are you joining my violent revolution?'

`Because this war has been really hard on the world, and especially on my students. And it wasn't the first, and unless something drastic changes, it won't be the last, not even the last for a while, this peace won't even last two decades before we have someone else who the world's crapped on who wants to rule it or destroy it, and can find stupid people to follow him.'

Severus choked at the stupid, as did Bellatrix.

Poppy noticed, and snorted, `OK, is foolish better?'

Severus nodded, and Bellatrix shrugged.

`So break this world, if we can build something better from the pieces,' Poppy finished.

`You'll do, I think,' Wren held out her hand, and Poppy shook it. She turned back to the minions, `And was the hench-search as successful?'

`We managed to recruit Mrs. Crouch, Nott, Goyle and Crabbe's widows, both of the Lovegoods, although Celestina wants to be a minion, instead-'

`Wait, the Lovegoods who run the Quibbler?'

`Yes.'

`How did, why, what made you --'

`Xenophilus is quite vocal in his condemnation of the Ministry on all issues Scientific, and Celestina has a column every issue complaining about how the Ministry is interfering with her research,' Severus said, `So when they walked in while we were pitching Mrs. Crouch,' he shrugged, `We felt them out a bit, then offered them places.'

Wren nodded, then paused, `Xenophilus? Love-of-the-strange?'

Severus nodded.

Wren started laughing, `I've got to make you all watch that movie, then.'

`Movie?' Poppy asked.

Several minutes of explanation turned into renting a copy of _Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb_, then a hotel room with a VCR. The minions and henches somehow managed to all pack in, after expanding the room a bit, and learned more about Muggles and their wars than they ever knew before.

Wren seriously contemplated on whether she wanted to be Wren Strangelove, or if she wanted the head of the V.A. to be Doctor Strangelove. She went to bed still undecided.

16 November 1992

`When we get to the boat dock, what do you do?' Wren asked Xenophilus.

`I bat my eyes at the auror guard, and ask to see the boat, then cosh him and wave the rest of you forward. I bind him, then Michelle grabs him, tosses him in the bunker, and joins us. Celestina stays in the bunker, guarding the rear and the kids.'

`I'm still wibbling on that, it might be safest to leave them home, with Celestina to watch them, but I'd want at least three more henches then, one to help Celestina, and two to guard our backs,' she frowns, `Bah fucking humbug.'

`Andromeda?' Severus asks, `Nym's almost seven, she could help with the little ones, and Ted's fairly useful, too.'

`Who's Andromeda?'

`Our middle sister,' Narcissa smiled, `Who, probably, we can get back once Sirius is cleared. She got expelled from the family for marrying Ted.'

`That's lovely,' Wren smiled, `How fucking messed up are these pureblood families?'

`Some of them aren't as bad as ours, but,' Bellatrix shrugged, `Might be able to get my sister in law and her husband, too.'

`Oh?'

`Prisilla is a medic at St. Mungo's, and her husband John is some sort of idle rich. Nice people, they hated my husband and his brother.'

`More medics is always a good thing. See if we can get them to help babysit, and Andomeda and Ted for the rear guard.'

`Will do.'

-*-

`Michelle?' Wren asked Mrs. Nott, who hadn't left with the rest of the henches.

`You're,' she paused, `You hold my contract by right,' she paused again, `What do you wish of me?'

Wren blinked, `I want you to be happy,' her lips quirked up crookedly, `I like being hugged, and held, and cuddled, but I'm not going to accept anything more than that for gratitude, or obligation, or pretty much any reason other than you personally, sincerely want to. If you want to find yourself a bloke, or a bird, or a little old lady, I don't care so long as both of you are happy with it.'

`And children?'

`Are your choice. If you're in love with a family member, I'd like most of your children to have four grandparents, but that's your business, really.'

Michelle smiled crookedly, `I'm guessing that's Bella and Cissy's fault?'

`Trixie, but yeah.'

`They're really pretty.'

`That's their business.'

`OK,' Michelle smiled, `So I can ask them?'

`Feel free.'

Once Michelle was out of sight Wren bit her hand, leaving a pink ring of tooth marks about the base of her thumb. After she watched the spit dry, she went to hide in the bathtub.

18 November 1992

Wren woke, rolled out of bed, gathered wand and pistol, then walked over to look down on the still sleeping girls. Narcissa was sprawled over Bellatrix, her blonde head tucked under her older sister's chin, pale hair mixing with black. Bellatrix shifted slightly, her hand on Narcissa's waist under the covers, and Wren smiled, blinking, at the content look on her face.

She spun and left the room.

When they arrived for breakfast Bellatrix grumbled, `You really should just get a beard-removal potion, they last for months,' then healed Wren's face.

-*-

Wren had spent what felt like hours, and probably was, arguing with the girls over what to wear to Sirius's trial. The eventual decision was black non-dress robes over their normal clothing, so Wren was twitching slightly when she walked into the courtroom. The billowy outfit swirled around her legs, catching and bunching, which was annoying enough, but it also blocked most easy draws of either her wand or pistol. She had already figured out what to do about it, but that would have to wait at least another day. She found a seat, settled Harry in her lap, and her Clipit in her hand. Narcissa sat next to her, and Bellatrix took the other side, against the aisle.

The rest of the audience filed in and settled noisily onto the benches. After a while Sirius was led in by a bailiff and seated in the center chair.

It promptly wrapped him in chains, and Wren winced. Edmund Howe leaned over Narcissa and touched Wren's hand.

*Snick*

`Hey,' Edmund said, freezing.

`Sorry,' Wren closed the knife, but didn't put it away, `Bit high strung today.'

`That's fine,' Edmund said, `But Mickey knows what she's doing, and should mop the floor with the prosecutor.'

The trial reminded Wren more of an episode of _Night Court_ than of the court martial's she had attended, but after a lot of snarking and complaining Sirius was declared a free man.

She stepped up to collect him, `Mister Black,' she started, `I'm sure you know your cousins, and I think Mister Howe, but I'm Wren.'

Sirius blinked down at her for several seconds before he took in the child on her left hip, `Oh! You killed those death eaters.'

`Yep. You're Harry's godfather, so,' she shrugged, `We've space, if you need somewhere to crash.'

Sirius blinked again, still groggy, `Sounds good.'

`Edmund?'

The lawyers joined the procession, and Wren started them towards the doors, Severus and Alecto on point.

A tall, brown-haired woman with a purple-haired child drifted up, `Sirius?' she asked.

`Uncle Sirius?' the child asked as well.

Wren turned to watch as Sirius drifted towards them, Narcissa following. Bellatrix stayed at Wren's left.

`Who's she?' Wren asked her softly.

`My little sister, Cissy's big sister, Andromeda. Auntie burned her off the tapestry when she married.'

`So the little one is hers, then?'

`My niece, Nymphadora Tonks.'

`Can we,' Wren smiled, then walked over to where Narcissa was crying on Andromeda's shoulder, `Ms. Tonks?' she asked, continued when she looked up, `Would you like to come home with us? I've got an errand to run with some of the minions, but that shouldn't take too long, and you could spend the time with your sister and the kids?'

-*-

Wren was surprised by how difficult it was to part from Harry -- she'd accepted the twitching and anxiety when separated from a weapon years ago, but this was new. She watched the girl try, and mostly fail, to interest the boys in a tea party. Harry looked vaugely interested, but Draco easily trumped her offering with, `Frogs!'

So the kids scurried out to hassle the frogs in the pond, Sirius, Narcissa, and Andromeda following along easily.

Wren turned to her minions, `John, you and Celestina are on guard here. The kids are priority, of course, then the adults. Only worry about property after any threats have been neutralized, got that?'

Celestina nodded, stroked her young baby's pale cheek.

`Yes Ma'am,' John agreed.

They started out into the garden while Wren choked down the urge to tell them she worked for a living.

She led her minions and henches into the second largest storage room, `We need to build a batcave, if we're going to keep this up,' she said, staring at her vial of greyish sludge, which smelled like boot polish.

Muriel snorted a short laugh, both her and Elizabeth, who had the camera, already in uniform.

`Batcave?' Severus asked, already, along with the rest, changing into his princess-sized BDUs.

`A muggle thing. I'll show you all later, OK?'

He nodded, and Wren's eyes swept over the group, all in British Woodland BDUs with "V.A." over the left pocket and "Bagnold" over the right. The uniforms, unlike her people, were all the same size, so they looked rather motley standing there, each holding a vial of golden sludge. She looked down at her flat chest, and the "Dumbledore" over her right pocket, then tipped her potion back.

The rest of them followed suit, then adjusted their uniforms and bras as needed. Wren shook her shoulders once she'd gotten adjusted, then smiled, `Tie your hair back, too, Alecto,' she told the only Princess Diana with her hair down. Alecto nodded, and did so.

`Let's go,' Wren told them, and they all trooped out into the side garden and joined hands. Bellatrix took Wren's hand, and Wren grabbed the portkey, activiting it.

She yelped at the feeling of being yanked by her center of gravity, the whole group spinning around her, and laughed. She hit the ground, much more lightly than after a parachute jump, in a very sloppy PLF, and lay there laughing for a moment before rolling to her feet, grey hair falling in her eyes before she shoved it back.

`Let's go. Alpha team, you ready?'

The boat capture team nodded.

`Lead on, then.'

`We're here today to take care of a secret prison run by the British government. This prison isn't on any map, and is elided from satellite pictures of the North Sea. We are going to declassify it today,' Wren told Elizabeth's camera, her back to the sea.

`Boat captured, Doctor!' Someone, Wren thought it was Severus, yelled.

`As you will see, the conditions at this prison are reprehensible. A concerted effort has been made to ensure an ambiance of mediaval squallor, and that effort extends to the costumes of the guards,' Wren gestures at some of the bound guards, stacked in the corner of their guard shack, `And equipment,' at the boat. `We determined that most of the prisoners had been removed to sit before a secret tribunal, and expect only ten guards and four prisoners today.'

The group filed onto the boat, and quickly had it under way. Ten minutes later they reached Azkaban's dock, and Elizabeth filmed the castle while Bravo team took the two guards in the shack. They're carried to the boat and dropped inside. Wren looked at a floating Dementor, then back to Elizabeth, who nodded, `Here we see one of the more interesting aspects of this prison -- holographic projections called "Dementors," which are used to keep the prisoners in line.'

Charlie and Delta manage to find the last four guards, and carry them back to the boat. Echo and Fox secure the prisoners, who look emaciated in their threadbare grey robes. Elizabeth makes sure to get good footage of them, and of the cells they pass in the dirty halls.

Bellatrix watches the door into the room they stop in, and Wren turns back to the camera, `This room is just below the waterline, and should thoroughly declassify the site with minimal radioactive fallout. However, our device has never been tested, so we're looking forward to the yield results, and hope the weather report was right, and that sending the cloud out over the North Sea is the proper answer. I'm sure we'll find out. Set it up.'

Muriel sets the briefcase down, five kilos of lead foil around a hollow eleven kilo oblate spheroid of impossibly pure Pu239, and a whole bunch of blinking lights and maskirovka to disguise the magicly imploded device as a mundane linear-implosion type, `Our new neutron reflector design should increase yeild significantly over standard linear implosion pure-fission devices, but that is something we will see soon. Let's go.'

Muriel closes the case, red LEDs blinking in a circle near the handle, and leads the way out of the room with Bellatrix, Wren and Elizabeth following.

They reach the boat quickly, and the shore shortly after that. All of the prisoners are carried to the trench, and Wren checks her watch, downs her second dose of Polyjuice, makes a face. Everyone else checks to make sure they are out of sight of the camera, and does the same.

`We've got about a minute until the device should detonate. We should see a great flash, followed by a massive condensation effect, then the mushroom cloud rising out of it. About that time the shockwave should hit, and the mushroom cloud will continue to rise,' Wren glanced at her watch, a Walgreen's special she had picked up at a corner store in London for half a quid that morning, `And we have thirty seconds left, sunglasses, girls,' she looked to the north, `Fifteen,' she knelt, pulled a pair of sunglasses from her cargo pocket and put them on, `Ten.'

Elizabeth slipped a mirrored ninety-nine percent dark filter over the Betacam's lens.

`Five.'

`Four.'

`Three.'

`Tw-'

*FLASH* A searingly-bright light cuts her off in mid-word.

`Whoops. Missed that a bit. Camera still working?'

Elizabeth nodded, pulled the filter off, and filmed the expanding cloud of glowing fog.

`Good.'

The fog faded to white as the temperature inside drops, and the mushroom coiled up from inside of it, boiling up into the sky.

`As you can see, our device detonated sucessfully. Only time will tell if,'

*KABOOM* The first shockwave arrived with an earthshaking roar, and Wren clapped her hands to her ears, as did the rest of her crew.

Once it fades a bit, she straightened, `We declassified the site, or if we'll have to repeat this. We'll be sending copies of this tape to every government and major media outlet, so I'd appreciate it if it was shown in it's full Andy Warhol filmish glory.

`We are the V.A., and we stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. You should too,' Wren gestured towards the still-climbing mushroom cloud, `Or we'll have to help you.'

Elizabeth stopped recording, and Wren yelled to her people, `Time to go! The planes will be here in minutes!' A quick check to make sure everyone had joined hands, then Wren unbuttoned her right rear hip pocket and grabbed the portkey in it.

They dropped into Narcissa's side garden, and Wren rolled to her feet and lead them into the storage room again, checking dosemeters. Everyone seemed to have only taken a safe dose, and a quick Gieger counter check showed only background radiation levels.

`Good job, people, you've got probably forty-five minutes before the polyjuice wears off. We're going to dub tapes, and we'll be sending them in a couple hours, unless they lock everything down. Stay out of sight until you're back to normal, but if there's anything you want to do in the mean time,' Wren trailled off, smiling. A dozen *Pop*s answered her, leaving her with eleven Princess Dianas. `You sure you don't want to do anything?' Wren asks them while Elizabeth steps into the Faraday cage around the dubbing setup. The rest looked at each other, then take the hint.

Elizabeth fed the tape into the Beta machine, rewound it, then started dubbing it off. `The first batch should be done in fifteen minutes,' she said.

`Good. You don't have to stick around, but lock the door if you leave the room or get distracted. I'm going to go spend a bit of alone time with the Queen of England,' Wren smiled impishly, `Never thought I'd be an old woman before I was a young one, but oh well.'

Muriel wrapped her in a firm hug, `You are a good woman.'

`Thanks,' Wren said, shaking her head, `I'll be back in a bit.'

-*-

`OK, any questions before we start?'

The other twenty three Princess Dianas shake their heads, `OK, then, let's go.'

Each group of two gathers up their fifteen pre-addressed packages, and appparates out. Five tapes per shop, UPS, FedEX, and DHL, second-day delivery. Labels laser-printed at a shop in London for a non-descript older woman with a solid alibi, since she was teaching kindergarten while a hench under polyjuice got them.

Next day service got them out of the country before the post was stopped.

The footage was on the news the next day, along with fallout maps as the cloud settled over the Netherlands, sickening dozens.

Elizabeth took it particularly hard, and Muriel called in sick.

12 29 November 1992

Wren placed her hand on the muggle photo of an M109A3 self-propelled 155mm howitzer, and the wall slid aside, revealing the bank of poles, and she slid down one. 

Wren smiles at the still-damp ferrocement lining her new secret hideout. It had taken more time to explain ferrocement than it had to create the chambers under Narcissa's house, but the material proved as spell-resistant as expected, the hot-worked rebar and welded wire's natural resistance augmented by careful bending to form the wardwork, then slathered in fine-mixed portland cement. It wouldn't be completely cured for another month, but it would be useable within days, and the bat-poles had made Bellatrix laugh, which Wren found adorable.

The dubbing equipment would be brought down over the next few days, as would the rest of the V.A.'s special gear.

7 December 1992

`I hadn't noticed the date,' Wren told Alecto, who was shivering slightly, `December Seventh, 1941. Fifty-one years since the US entered World War Two.'

That got a blank look from Alecto, and Wren stared at her, shocked.

`The muggle war that killed fifty million people?'

`There's fifty million people in the world?' Alecto asked.

`There's something like eighty million people in Britain, dear.'

`Oh,' Alecto looks down, `How was Runs-from-death going to kill eighty million people if he only got ten or twelve a week?'

`He was insane, obviously, or he had a different plan.'

`What? He'd kill about a dozen muggles and two dozen wizarding folk every -- ' Alecto cut herself off mid-thought.

`That's fifty-two by twelve, um, 624, double that -'

`There's only about thirty thousand wizarding folk in Britain,' the receptionist says, her hands clutched tight to her chest, `So he was trying to kill _us_? Why?'

`Because he's crazy? Because we're more of an immediate threat? Because he hates wizards just as much as he hates muggles? I don't know,' Wren shrugged.

`Oh, and the Chiurgeon is ready for Miss Carrow. Mister Carrow can have visitors, but don't tire him, and he's only allowed two at a time.'

`Thank you,' Alecto told the receptionist. She turned to Wren, `Could you come with?' she blushed, and looked at her hands.

Wren nodded, `I'll stick with you until she kicks me out, OK?'

`Hold my hand?' Alecto asked in a small voice.

`Fine.'

-*-

Wren watched, fascinated, as Alecto's back shifted and writhed, faint popping noises occasionally sounding as the short, even shorter than Wren, young witch's hump smoothed out.

`Good, all of her bones are the right shape now, lets tighten up her tendons and ligaments properly,' the old Chiurgeon, Elenora Halstead, talked her way through the process, explaining to Wren and Alecto as she went, `This may feel tense, but let me know if it hurts, dear.'

`Yes'm,' Alecto agreed. She squeezed Wren's hand hard when, with a quiet grating noise, her back straightened out for the first time since she was a child.

`Good, good,' Elenora nodded, then bent down to look at Alecto from the side before she walked around the table to look at her from the other side, `Now we just need to shift your innards a little, because you're now a different shape, and straighten your ribs a bit --'

Alecto whimpered and clutched Wren's hand when her ribs and sternum twisted inside her, bending into a slightly different shape.

`I told you to tell me if it hurt, young witch,' Elenora complained.

`It just felt,' Alecto shivered, `Real weird. Didn't hurt, not really, just weird.'

Wren patted her hand.

`Good, then lets roll you over, and have you sit up so I can get another look.'

Alecto twisted, brought her knees up, and shoved up with her free hand, so she could drop her feet off the table and sit up without letting go of Wren's hand. She looked down her naked body and blinked, `Wow, boobies. Nice looking boobies.'

Wren smiled at her, `Yes, they are.'

`Good,' Alecto pulled her in, wrapped her left hand in her hair, and dragged her down for a kiss, wrapping her legs around the taller woman's waist.

Wren gently but firmly pulled free, not letting go of Alecto's hand.

`Well,' Elenora smiled, a twinkle in her grey eyes, `It's good to see Miss Carrow is feeling better. I'd like you to stand and walk about a little bit, just to make sure there aren't any profound alignment issues.'

Wren helped Alecto off the table, and blinked, since the top of her head still only came to about Wren's nose, `You're still pretty short,' she said.

`Pretty's fine,' Alecto said blithely. She tried walking, staggered a little, her balance completely changed, and clutched Wren's hand tighter as she swayed.

`Good, good,' Elenora positively beamed, her well-wrinkled face alight, `Lets get you into a gown, and off to recovery until the anesthesia wears off.'

-*-

Wren traced the line of Alecto's nose with a finger, looking down on the sleeping witch, `I hope she doesn't want that changed,' she said softly.

`She does have a very nice nose, doesn't she?' Elenora smiled at the witches, `You don't have to pay for it if you don't want her to.'

Wren shook her head, smiling, `I promised her pretty, so if she doesn't like it, she can change it. I just like hooked noses, so,' Wren shrugged, and lead Elenora from the room, `I was wondering about some things.'

`Feel free to ask, it isn't like I get much work anymore.'

`It was five thousand galleons for the work, but,' Wren made a helpless gesture, palm up, fingers spread, from her belly out, `You did two people today, and you're not very tired at all.'

`I know. The Wizengamot sets the prices, and wonders why people can't afford healing. It used to be that the Ministry would pay for healing and regeneration on Ministry employees, but they can't afford it anymore.'

`So we're protecting the business of continental chiurgeons?'

`There are no contininental chiurgeons, for the same reason I've not got an apprentice -- it's a capitol crime to practice without a license, and you need a board of three chiurgeons to license a new one.'

Wren just stared, `So number three died in the Grendelwald kerfluffle, number two priced himself to death, and left you holding the bag.'

`Something like that, yes.'

`I can pay for a few people, particularly if you promise to spend the money. I think I know a couple people who'd like to learn, too.'

`Good luck with the Wizengamot,' Elenora looked at her hands, `I put in a petition every year, and every year they ignore it.'

`Due to certain coffin-sucking rich boys attacking me, I'm _inordinately_ well-to-do right now. I think I should be able to make the point in a way they'll understand.'

`I hope you can,' Elenora sighed, looking down at her hands, `It's been a long time since they've done anything useful.'

Wren gave her a hug, `I hope so too.'

9 December 1992

Wren led the Carrows into the house, holding the door.

`Wren!' Harry called, waving from his place, trapped, in Bellatrix's arms.

Wren rushed, "scuttled," she thought, to collect him as soon as the Carrows were in the door.

She settled the boy on her padded hip, and watched the party. Everyone greeted the two, and pampered them a bit. Just about everyone flirted gently with whichever of them was the appropriate sex, which Wren was amused, but pleased, to note was both of them in most cases. 

After watching Alecto duck her head and blush at something Andromeda said, Wren shivered, turned to Harry, `Let's get you to bed, OK?'

`Uh Uhn,' Harry shook his head to that, then yawned.

`Yeah huh,' Wren told him, smiling.

`Uh Uh,' Harry shook his head again.

`When you've got your feet on the floor, you'll have a rat's chance of saying when you're going to bed, kid,' Wren told him sweetly, heading for the bathroom.

`Fuck,' Harry said, smiling at his naughty behavior. Wren laughed in his face.

-*-

Harry, as expected, crashed as soon as Wren tucked him in, his teeth brushed and his face washed. She returned to her bathroom, glared at the mirror, and leaned on the sink. The potion actually took care of the beard quite well. The witch at the beauty shop Narcissa recommended had fixed her hairline nicely, de-emphasized the points of her jaw, and she rather liked her cleft chin, all told. It was still her face, just prettier. Wren punched the wall next to the mirror, the elves said it was easier to fix, hard. And again, the tiles cracking loose. And again, the wooden lath giving way and spilling tiles to rattle down the counter to the floor.

Wren regarded her bleeding knuckles with black amusement, `And it still doesn't make me feel any better.' She licked at the blood, then sat in the corner between the tub and the door to suck her fist and sulk. She managed to doze like that for a bit, only to be startled back to wakefullness by a cute little dark-haired witch climbing into her lap.

A half-smile curled her lip and a sigh escaped. A cute dark-haired little drunk witch.

Alecto pulled back, eyes shiny, `I'm sorry-' she started.

`No, it's not you,' Wren told her quickly, wrapped her arms about the slighter form, `I seem to remember telling you I don't have sex with drunk people.'

`Oh, and you thought you'd be getting lucky?' Alecto's smile reappeared, `And you were happy it was me?'

Wren nodded, `I think you're very pretty. You were cute before, but I imagine this is more comfortable.'

`Oh, much,' Alecto nodded, snuggled up against Wren's chest, `Your boobies rustle.'

`That's 'cause they're full of birdseed.'

`Lemme see,' Alecto said, starting several minutes of playful fighting as Alecto tried to either peer down Wren's shirt or pull it off entirely.

After a bit Wren lost interest and let the drunk witch win. She raised her arms and let Alecto tug her shirt off, then crossed her arms, hugging herself just under her bra. She watched Alecto's hands, her face guarded.

Alecto smiled, cupped Wren's falsies in her hands, glanced up to see the gobsmacked expression on her face, `You told us weeks ago that you were born a boy, remember?'

Wren looked her in the eyes, and nodded, confused.

`I like you, as a person, I like you. I don't like many people, I don't like me, but I like you, and I like the me I see in your eyes.'

Wren blinked, then pulled Alecto close and buried her face against the witch's shoulder, whimpering and blinking, `Sorry,' she said.

Alecto sighed, `Don't be,' she said, `I shouldn'ta gotten so sloshed,' she kissed Wren's bare shoulder, `But I can try again when I'm sober, right?'

Wren nodded, `I,' she paused, `Don't expect much success, but I'd love it if you tried.'

`You won't get angry with me, will you?'

`I don't think so.'

`Good,' Alecto shifted slightly so she could kiss at Wren's neck.

Wren whimpered, stretched her neck out, and started crying softly into Alecto's shoulder.

10 December 1992

Wren woke, warm, comfortable, and stiff. She shifted and conked her head on the bathtub. The instinctive reach and rub was stopped by the warm witch sleeping against her, pressing her into the corner between the floor and wall, an uncomforable folded sensation, and her arm was asleep underneath Alecto somewhere.

Wren tried to straighten her shoulders, a painful flex of muscle, then scraped dark hair off her face with a pause to contemplate the color, not quite black, but a very dark brown with the occasional black strand. She shook her head and smiled. She wiggled her fingers between the floor and something soft.

Alecto woke, smiling, `Nice,' she said, `I didn't drink too much.'

`Oh?'

`No hangover,' she shook her head, winced, `Well, not much of one, and I remember falling asleep on the pretty blue-eyed witch I woke up on in the morning, so I can't have drunk too much.'

`My arm's quite asleep, so I unfortunately need it back.'

`Oh?' Alecto grabbed and shifted, rolling them both onto her back, `Is that better?' she smiled up at Wren, who blinked down at her stupidly, goosebumps rising on her bare back in the chill air.

`Somewhat,' she managed after about thirty seconds, then rolled them again, so she was on the bottom, `This is good,' she said, then looked at her watch, `Don't need to be up for a few hours, anyway.'

`Good,' Alecto leaned in and kissed her, `I'm sober now, so . . . '

`I must again warn you that I am not a woman of light virtue,' Wren told her, then leaned up to kiss her, lips just barely open, sucking and carressing gently.

19 December 1992

`Ma'am? Headmaster Dumbledore, Ma'am,' Dobby bobbed, his ears flopping. Wren sighed, pleased to have gotten at least that much restraint out of him.

`Thank you, Dobby, send him in,' Wren said, sitting next to Harry, who was engaged in some sort of tea party with Nymphadora, involving mud-cakes and a pale brown leaf-tea. Wren took another sip of her tea, sure she'd had worse, but unable to place where.

`Miss Xom?' the tall white-haired man asked, when Dobby led him to the side garden.

Wren nodded, gestured to the other side of the rock Nymphadora was using as a table, `Have a seat.'

`I was wanting to talk to you about Harry,' he said, still standing.

`Then sit,' Wren took another sip of her tea, `Have a cup of tea, it's mostly elm with a bit of willow, it should be perfectly safe.'

A discomfitted look flitted across his face, and he sat. He took a cup of tea, and sipped it gingerly.

`So, what did you want to talk about Harry about?'

`His mother,' he paused, glanced nervously at Wren, then continued, `Lily, used blood magic to protect him.'

`Yes,' Wren nodded, `We figured that out when we checked the house in Goderick's Hollow.'

`If he lives with his mother's blood-kin, we can tie that magic into the ward structure, and protect him-'

`I seem to be doing a fine job of that already,' Wren said, `One insane power-hungry wizard is no trouble. When that wizard has followers, that's when there's problems. We caught Pettigrew two days ago, so we seem to be running low on coffin suckers. I intend that when Runs-from-death returns the wizarding world will be a lot safer.'

`What do you mean, when Voldemort returns?'

`Rookwood was an Unspeakable, did you know that? And a coffin sucker. He told us about the prophesy, and Harry and I listened to it. We can't continue the way you've been going, in four hundred years the muggles have gone from a deadly annoyance to a real extinction-level threat to the wizarding world.'

`And what do you intend to do about that?'

`Well, I've got more money than just about anyone, so I'm going to spread it around. Gender equality, public libraries, physics, genetics, chemistry, all of the useful muggle notions.'

`Do you know anything about the explosion that destroyed Azkaban?'

`It was a two-hundred kiloton fission weapon, from the footage there was magic involved, and the one who looked like the queen had a funny accent.'

`Look me in the eyes, girl.'

`Look up, old man,' Dumbledore's face slackens a bit, `I've got three people with rifles trained on you right now. That's the lovely thing about rifles, you see, you can train someone up from bare novice to deadly accurate, accurate enough that you'd let them shoot within feet of your children, in weeks. Stay out of my head, you don't want to see inside of it. I'd prefer not to see inside of it, sometimes, but I can't do anything about that.'

`I see,' Dumbledore sighed heavily, `How do you know you've gotten all the Death Eaters?'

`We turned a few, and used veratasium on all the ones we caught alive,' Wren shook her head, `If the muggles . . . muggles don't have anything like it, and still muggle terrorists use a much more tightly celled structure. Every coffin sucker knew every other coffin sucker. They even knew who in the Ministry was bent.'

`What? Who?'

`Crouch Junior,' Wren smiled, `The rest of them I'll keep an eye on.'

Nymphadora took the wide-eyed look on Dumbledore's face for a cue, and offered him a plate, `Mud-cake? They're quite good.'

Winter Solstice, 1992

Wren looked over her family, smiled crookedly, and settled Harry in her lap, facing towards where, since she'd made sure the day before, the sun would be coming up, the early morning sky already faded to grey.

The Black girls are sitting next to each other, Bellatrix and Andromeda framing Narcissa, Nymphadora in Bellatrix's lap, Ted holding Andromeda's hand, with Draco in his lap. The little boy blinked at Wren, and smiled.

Wren smiled back, let her eyes drift over the Lovegoods, stacked up like chairs, with tiny baby Luna catching at her breath, chubby little hands determined to catch the escaping mist.

Alecto, Wren's smile turned into a grin for a moment, remembering, was playing with Severus, poking her lightly and batting at her long hands whenever she tried to retaliate.

Amicus is sitting by himself, watching.

A few of the henches are scattered over the lawn, but most of them, and the minions, had other things to do than watch the sun rise over the snow.

Wren picked the drum up off the blanket next to her, and started a rather random "duum teka teka duum duum tek duum duum teka teka" a moment before the sun rose over the horizon, and kept it up until it cleared the ground. She tapped out a final "teka teka tek" and set the drum down again, `Hot chocolate, anyone?'

23 December 1992

`So,' Wren looked over her minions, seated at the round table in the batcave, and her henches, on the benches against the walls, `We pulled off a great coup, but what next? I don't want to nuke anything for a while, but we need to do something to keep them off balance, keep up momentum.'

`We could take over the wireless, and you could bitch at them?' one of the henches, a dark haired young woman, proposed.

`Sounds good, Sharon,' Wren agreed, `Any idea, no matter how stupid, may have some use, so feel free.'

`Print political crap in the Profit? Without paying for it?' Xenophilus, from his place with the henches, offered.

`The Wizengamot's a circle-jerk, so we could,' pause, blush, `Play with that?'

Wren blinked, smiled, then fell out of her chair laughing. After a moment she picked herself up, and sat again, `What,' she said, `The idea of them all coming too with their hands wrapped around each other's cocks doesn't tickle?'

Severus smiled, `When you put it that way, it does, but,' she shivered, `Would you want to wake up with a fat old wizard's hand in your pants?'

Wren frowned, `Nope. Hmm,' Wren drummed her fingers on the table a moment, `We could put all the wizards in one ring, and the witches in another?'

`Still pretty "eww",' Celestia spread her hands on the table, `Some of those old bats don't believe in soap, even if we can at least be sure they've not got their hands on something too unfamiliar.'

`Gloves would take care of that, and most diseases, but,' Poppy shivers, `I know if I was a boy, I'd not want most of those old men pawing my privates, even gloved.'

`Strap-ons?' Wren asked.

That served to utterly derail the rest of the meeting, which eventually broke with a decision to resume after Yule and a promise by Wren to order a "Good Vibrations" catalog.

Yule, 1992

Nymphadora, Wren was amused to discover, woke earlier on yule morning than she did.

`Shh, kid, you'll wake your aunts,' she told the excited seven-year-old, `Give me a minute and we can drink chocolate or tea or something and think of something to do with the adults for not waking up early enough.'

`Wow! Mama just told me to go back to sleep!' Nymphadora whispered loudly, `You're the bestest grown-up ever.'

`There's a reason, you see,' Wren took an exagerated look around, and leaned closer to the girl, saying softly, `I've never grown up! I tried to stop at five foot two, but I overshot just a bit, so I'm five-four instead.'

`But Alecto's a grownup, and you're taller than she is.'

`We'll have to see about that,' Wren told her, `Now let me get dressed a bit, and we'll go wake Alecto.'

`I'll go get her up!' Nymphadora said eagerly.

`I want to wake her up, but it's not proper to go harring off into someone's room without at least trousers on.'

`Oh,' Nymphadora looked down at her nightgown, `I'll see you there,' she said, and hurried from the room.

Wren blinked, then smiled.

She found Nymphadora waiting impatiently outside Alecto's room when she gets there, barefoot in BDU bottoms and a t-shirt, .45 at her hip. A smile quirked at the corner of her mouth, for the girl had a lurid pair of purple pajama bottoms on under her nightgown. She shushed the girl quietly, then slipped Alecto's door open, pausing, `Hey, you feel this?'

Nymphadora reached out.

`Careful, if you press too hard you'll trigger it. That's an alarm spell, it's supposed to wake her up if anyone crosses it. This one doesn't go off if someone opens the door, I'm not sure why, but what else doesn't it do?'

Nymphadora ran her hand up, then down, along the alarm spell, then blinked, `It stops!'

`Yep. Does it start again?'

`No, not all the way to the floor!' Nymphadora whispered excitedly.

`So, I'll go first, and you can follow me. Pull the door behind you so it's not hanging open,' Wren told her, and crawled under the alarm spell.

Nymphadora hurried after her.

`Now, there's probably other spells, I've been trying to get her to be more cautious, so feel carefully, OK?'

`Right!'

Wren stayed close to the floor, feeling in front of her for spells as she went, and Nymphadora followed closely behind. Once to the bed she rose, trailed quiet fingers along the covers until she reached Alecto's nose, and rubbed the line of it with gentle fingers.

Nymphadora blinked and made a face.

`Yes, it's kinda mushy,' Wren told her, `But mushy's nice when it's happening to you, and you don't have to watch if you don't want to.'

`Huh,' Nymphadora said, stumped by that response. She wasn't sure if she liked it better than "You'll understand when you're older," but it was a little less annoying.

`Are you going to keep stroking my nose all morning?' Alecto asked, blinking a little.

`Do you want me to?'

`I think people would get suspicious,' Alecto managed a smile.

`Oh? Is it going to get long and hard? Jet white stuff everywhere?' Wren asked her.

The young metamophamagus next to her blinked, pulling at her nose, which did get longer. She pushed it back to its normal shape for later contemplation.

Alecto giggled, `So why are you waking me up?'

`'Cause Nym woke me up about half an hour ago, and we need to prove to her that grown-up-ness is caused by growing too much,' Wren told her very seriously.

Alecto laughed, pulled her close, and kissed her soundly.

Nymphadora turned away, and made exagerated comic wretching noises.

-*-

Downstairs one of the henches poured hot chocolate for the three, and Dobby, rather beside himself at the afront, was dragged into a game of spades.

`So,' Alecto looked at Wren, `I think I've got two.'

Wren checked her cards again, frowned, and bid six for the pair of them.

This being the third hand, Dobby and Nymphadora had finally grasped the game, decided with a few subtle gestures, and Nymphadora bid, `Ten.'

Wren looks at Alecto, who shrugged and cut her eyes in a way Wren read as `Not my fault.'

Wren smiled back, and Dobby started off with the two of hearts.

Fifteen seconds later Wren tapped that book square and dropped it in front of her, checked her cards, and dropped the two of clubs, `I noticed that you still haven't alarmed your door,' she asked Alecto.

`I did,' Alecto smiled broadly, tossed the five of clubs onto Dobby's four, `If anyone but you or my brother puts their hand on the doornob, it wakes me, and sets the traps. My brother gets a full-length alarm that will wake me, and you get the half-length, so you can sneak in.'

Wren collected the book, and Nym dropped an ace of diamonds.

Wren tossed the two onto it, `What if they use a tool, or magic?'

`It actually checks the door opening, which is probably why you missed it,'

`Nice,' Wren nodded, noticed it was her turn, and dropped the queen of diamonds onto the jack.

Dobby dropped a seven, and Wren collected the book.

-*-

The boys make it down stairs about three hours later, still well before the sun came up, and someone thought it would be a good idea to teach them how to play exploding snap.

It turned out to be a funny idea, maybe, but not really good.

Wren was surprised that she managed to keep them contained until dawn, despite Draco's habit of trying to get rid of cards as fast as he could, and Harry's repeated attempts to hoard them until they blew up, which made him laugh uproariously. Wren noticed the time first, surprising her, and interupted the game, which had lost several rules, `Well, the sun's should be up in a moment, so let's go make sure it makes it up,' she said, `And then it'll be time to wake the minions.'

`Yay!' Harry bounced, shaking his cards so they'd go off.

After the confetti scattered, they all trooped out to the garden, and stood in the snow next to the faintly-steaming pond, watching as the awake henches joined them.

Wren was quite amused to hear someone drumming as the sun peeked over the horizon, and turned to find one of the henches with a bodhran in her hands. The young witch blushed and smiled, and Wren turned back to the kids, who were watching with some solemnity.

As soon as the drumming stopped, Nymphadora dove, and emerged half-soaked from the pond with a frog in her hands. Harry's attempt was less successful, but he climbed out happily.

`Mama'll scream,' Nymphadora said proudly, clutching the poor amphibian loosely, `And Daddy'll laugh.'

She had that exactly backwards, but that might have been due to the frog jumping out of her hands as she went to set it on her mother's face, and landing on her father's.

Wren snickered in a corner, and the only reason she didn't hide her face in Alecto's shoulder is that Alecto was giggling and twitching, her face already buried in Wren's bosom. Harry was chasing the frog, which had bounded off again and was hiding under a cabinet.

Once the parents had been calmed, and the frog recaptured, the party proceeded to the girl's room, to find them quite awake, much to Harry's disappointment, and the frog's relief as it was released back into the pond without further molestation.

-*-

After the pond-divers had been changed, and breakfast eaten, attention turned to presents.

There was a massacre of wrapping paper and boxes, large ones, small ones, and many strange things in stockings.

Wren was annoyingly smug about her present choices -- Harry was still walking around with the lump of nearly black nephrite she found, and Nymphadora was still contemplating what to do with her refrigerator box, drawing plans on the backside of scraps of wrapping paper as she plotted. Sirius was wasting Polaroid film like it was going out of style.

Sirius was annoyed that the toy brooms had proven less enthralling than a rock and a stuffed frog, but otherwise was coping well when lunchtime rolled around. Then he noticed the kids were missing.

`Not to be an alarmist, but have you seen the children recently?' he asked.

Wren laughed and nodded.

`Where?' Alecto asked her.

Wren smiled, and said `You,' being Sirius, `You,' being Alecto, `Follow quietly,' in standard Army hand and arm signals. That got a blink, then a nod, as they remembered the meanings.

Wren led them back into the living room, where Nymphadora had crashed, after being up for nine hours on three hours sleep, in the bottom of her refrigerator box. She was curled up on her side, with Draco balled up in her lap and Harry draped over her back. Sirius managed to take a couple picutes without waking the kids, and Wren gave him a thumbs up, rocking euphoricly on her feet while Alecto huggled her.

The children slept until nearly dinner time. They woke up hungry as the minions and henches began to arrive, along with their children and significant others.

Nymphadora came in, rubbing sleep from her eyes, hair a green that matched Harry's jade, and promptly got into a fight with Evan Rosier.

Wren watched, then when Evan had her pinned knelt next to her, `Are you playing or are you fighting?'

`Fighting,' Nymphadora answered.

`Playing,' Evan answered at the same time.

`OK, if you're fighting and he's playing, you should have won,' Wren told Nymphadora.

`But he's bigger and stronger than me,' Nymphadora whined.

`Then you need to be meaner,' Wren looked the two over, `Where can you hit him, and with what?'

Nymphadora looked down her body, her wrists pinned under Evan's hands and his knee on her belly. She jerked forward, and he pulled back from the attempted head butt. After that she looked at Wren, who nodded, and jerked her knee up hard into Evan's butt, pitching him forward and off, letting her roll and tug her hands free, and she flopped onto his back. A moment's struggle, and she smashed his head against the floor, dazing him.

`Now he's either given up, or he'll be fighting now. Yep, here he comes,' Wren warned, and Evan, still groggy, turned and clouted her firmly to the side of the eye.

Nymphadora shoved his head back hard, clouting it against the floor again, then punched him in the throat with the other hand.

`OK, that's it, fight's over,' Wren said then rolled Nymphadora off and, with a brutally firm squeeze, popped Evan's trachea back out.

Evan screamed, then whimpered.

`Good, you're not gonna die, kid,' Wren told him, helping him up and giving him a hug, `Let's get you a pain potion,' she looked to Poppy, who nodded.

Wren looked around at her minions and henches, who were looking at her strangely, `I'da been better for having fought more as a kid, so,' she shrugs, `So long as no one's permanently hurt.'

`Oh,' Evan said, `I thought you didn't like me.'

`Your old man was a murderer and a rapist. That's not your fault, nor your aunt's. You seem like a good kid, so you get to put up with me mothering you, OK?'

`Hope it doesn't hurt this much,' he muttered.

`Don't let little girls punch you in the throat and it shouldn't,' Wren told him. She turned to look at Nymphadora, who's hair had turned purple with worry, `Good job, Nym, if this was a real fight you could have escaped or made sure he died at that point.'

`Died?' Nymphadora blinked.

Wren nodded, `There's two types of good enemies, the ones that are your friends and the ones that are dead.' 

New Years, 1993

Wren clapped her hands in delight at the set of tympani someone had found or conjured, and Harry laughed. They sat near the pond, and after a while Draco, laughing, came tearing up, trying to hide from his cousin behind them.

Nymphadora, her black eye faded to an ugly yellow, dove around them and captured the young boy, dangling him by his ankle, using both hands to hold him up.

He yelled, screamed, and laughed, writhing and twisting, but not too hard, she had dropped him earlier when he managed to kick her in the chin.

When he started to turn more purple than red Wren spoke up, `OK, let him go now.'

Both of them pouted at that, but sat quietly, throwing snowballs at each other.

Alecto arrived, sitting between Wren and Nymphadora, a little before the drumming started.

The tympani were loud, but the cannon as the sun crested the horizon was louder.

Harry whimpered from under Wren, and Alecto blinked up at her in shock.

Wren pushed herself back to sit on her feet, hands on her knees betweet the two, `Well, that was surprising. Who's bright idea was that?' Her blue eyes raked the gathered henches, including the three gathered around the large brass cannon that had somehow appeared behind the tympani.

`He did it!' all three claim, pointing one to the next in a circle.

Wren frowned, glaring, then her lips twitched, eventually smiling, then she chuckled, `OK, Summer solstice only for the cannon from now on, and put it futher away.'

7 January 1993

Wren looked up from the report, `So this man's obliviated just about everyone in the neighborhood? And he's a blood-relation to a lot of them?'

`Of the younger ones,' the team chief nods.

`Any time, and remind me if I don't,' Wren paused, and grabbed a piece of paper, scrawling, "amend SOP to check for abuse/molestation/rape obl." before turning back the the distraught young wizard, `You see something like this, bring it to my attention. I'll take care of it.'

-*-

Wren glanced to either side, where Severus and Bellatrix stood, flanking her a half-pace back, then at the camera op, who gave a thumbs up, then announced, `Bring him in.'

Elphreda brought the bruised and bleeding wizard in, his grey hair matted on one side, dripping slowly onto his shoulder, `He resisted.'

`Wash your hands, dear, you wouldn't want to catch anything from him.'

Elphreda shoved him down, clamping the restraints about his arms, then left, shaking slightly.

`Severus.'

She stepped forward, and dripped three droplets of clear fluid onto the man's tongue, long fingers digging into his cheeks to force his mouth open.

Once she was back in place Wren asked the prisoner, `What is your name?'

`I don't have to tell you,' the man tried, defiant.

`No, you don't. Bellatrix?'

The man paled, and Bellatrix's voice whispered something hard and fricative. He screamed, sobbing, trying to curl into a ball.

`What is your name?'

`Claudius Fudge.'

`How long have you been raping little girls and boys?'

`I don't . . . they're compelled, they don't fight back at all,' he said.

`I suppose that means you don't have to heal them. How long?'

He blinks, `Since school,' he paused, tried to count on his fingers, stopped, sobbing.

`How long?'

`Ninety years, I think,' he said.

`Do you know how many of the little girls and little boys you've raped are your children, grandchildren, or both?'

`Most of them.'

`Would you stop?'

`Why? They don't remember it. I'm not doing anything any other wizard wouldn't do.'

`OK,' Wren concentrated, feeling the flow of magic, and walking through the steps, leaving out the wand-waving, the red light, paring the spell down to just, `Boom,' she said.

The man slumped, without even a surprised look on his face.

The red light on the camcorder died, and Wren slumped back against Bellatrix, who cuddled her close.

`I'll dispose of that,' Severus said, flicking the restraints open with a wave of her wand, then levitating the corpse and stalking out with it.

Wren twisted in Bellatrix's arms and burried her face against the tall witch's belly, `How can people get away with shit like that? What's wrong with this fucking country?' she hissed.

15 January 1993

`So Delores Umbridge, sorry, Warbeck, she got married before she graduated, graduated, lived with her wife for almost three years, then her parents obliviated her and made her believe she was a Slytherin instead of a Hufflepuff, made her hate all near-humans, including her wife, and that her name was Dolores, and reported Delores Warbeck dead?' Wren looks at the team chief who'd brought her the report, then the shattered middle-aged woman crying in the arms of one of the other Obli's arms.

He nods, `That was back in the twenties. We managed to recover everything from when she entered school until midway through her seventh year, because they modified that, but she's missing from then until she woke up as twenty-one year old Dolores Umbridge. It's gone.'

`How about her wife?'

`She's a hag, so she should still be alive. I wonder if she's related to Celestina Warbeck?'

Wren shuddered, `Perhaps.' She straightened her shoulders, and walked over to the victim.

`Mrs. Warbeck?'

Delores looked around, then up at Wren, and started crying again.

`What is your wife's name?'

`Mystra. Mystra Warbeck.'

`Do you have an address where we can try and find her?'

`Her parent's address is all I remember, and I don't know if they're still alive.'

`We'll do our best to reunite you with your wife and children, Ma'am,' Wren told her.

`Children?' Delores asked, then cupped her hands over her belly, whimpering.

-*-

Wren closed the door carefully behind her, and twitched violently, `Fuck,' she said, succinctly, bitter and harsh, `Burning this country to the ground would be too good for it.' 

30 January 1993

Wren faced the camera, wearing Margaret Thatcher's body and a name-tape that said "Nixon", and her minions stood around, again looking like Princess Diana and labeled, this time, "Johnson." Elizabeth checked with her, then hit the record button.

`Now, to start, I should probably claim that I am not a crook,' Wren smiled, `But, by several measures and four or five different international treaties, I am, so I'd be lying just like President Nixon was twenty years ago. You face,' The V.A. logo projected on the wall behind her changed, shifting to footage from the recent debate, `A quandry, a choice between truth and justice, or lies, bigotry, and evil. As has often been the case in recent American politics, lies, bigotry and evil seem to be winning.'

The picture behind her went still, a greyscale photo of black and white troops working together, `Forty-five years ago, a similar problem was faced, and the president went against congress and the Army, and desegregated the services. That was six years,' the picture changed again, to footage from Little Rock in 1954, as black students were escorted into school, `Before Brown Versus Board of Education said that seperate was not equal. The Army said it would be bad for good order and discipline, that it would cause problems, that it wouldn't work.'

The background fades to olive drab, with a pie chart showing the US military demographics, `And, as you can see, they were wrong.'

The background goes pink, with Army, Navy, and Air Force logos, which fade into numbers, `The services discharge hundreds of people, most of them with good NCOERs and OERs, every year, and for what? Who they love in their off time?'

The numbers change, `Every year people die because someone decided that they were gay, and because of that they have the right to kill them,' the top, lowest, number bolds, then fades out, `Beat them so badly the have to be hospitalized,' the next number, `Or just harrass and assault them,' the last number.

The background went black, `Forty-five years ago, the President stood up for what was right. Forty-five years ago, the President led the country, and truth, justice, and the American way prevailed.'

The black background faded into a map of Washington DC, centered on the Washington Monument. A red circle faded in, centered on the monument, then a larger pink circle, then a very pale, almost white, irregular blob, which extended up and down the Potomac, `Let truth and justice prevail.'

The light goes out on the camera, and Wren looked to Elizabeth, who nodded, `Thirty seconds on the dot.'

`Good. Let's make sure it's a good take, then we can dupe 'em and dump 'em,' Wren leaned down to give the tiny woman a hug, smiling, `You're so tiny like this.'

`Alecto's smaller than I am,' Elizabeth laughed.

`Not right now,' Alecto, tall, blonde, and smiling, said. 

2 Febuary 1993

Harry squirmed in Wren's arms, and Wren squirmed in her seat on the couch, `C-SPAN isn't supposed to be this much fun,' she whimpered, finally letting the boy go.

Some white-haired old man is ranting that they shouldn't have let blacks in the Army if it was going to prompt terrorists to threaten them with nuclear weapons, and at that Wren bolted off the couch, laughing hystericly, and hid in the doorway to the room. Alecto and Bellatrix, who'd watched comedies with her before, paid the behavior no mind, but Severus and Elphreda looked at her askance.

Narcissa came out of the bathroom, slid past Wren, and sat down in Bellatrix's lap, `Is this the same old man, or is it a different one?'

`Oh, the last one was calling queers spawn of satan, and that they should be identified at birth and drowned.'

`Can they do that?'

`They mis-identify babies' _mothers_,' Wren said, `And the only way they can tell if an adult is queer is if they catch them or they're told, so, no, not yet.'

`That's good, then.'

`For now. I expect they'll figure that out in about thirty years, so I want this to be old news by then,' Wren went silent, listening to the pretty brown woman who'd taken the podium.

`When a man is beating his wife, does it matter who tells him to stop? Does it matter if it's the local crack dealer with a bat or a police officer with a gun? Truth is truth, no matter who speaks it.'

Wren smiled, `And they'da come to some stupid compromise, and it would take them another twenty years to get it right if they did. This way they'll go one way or the other, and I think they'll chose the right way.'

9 Febuary 1993

Wren looked at the two small boys, Harry, bleeding but smiling, and Draco, bleeding and sniffling, then sat down *thump* on the marble floor near them. `Who wants to tell me what happened?'

Dobby looked up, wringing his hands, and Wren met his eyes with a small shake of her head.

Harry looked at her, steady, both pupils the same size, `I had my rock, and Draco took it, and wouldn't give it back. I told him, and I told him, and I hit him, and he hit me with my rock, and I thought he broke it, and I took it,' Harry sat down, too, crossed his legs, and tucked his green rock between his body and his ankles.

`Was that playing or fighting?'

`Playing, but he wouldn't give it back, so,' Harry swung a fist.

`Draco?' Wren asked, catching his eyes as well.

`He told you,' Draco said sulkily.

`Were you playing?'

`Until he hit me.'

`So you were fighting when you hit him with the rock?'

`It was loud! I thought I broke him,' Draco said, bawling anew.

`Well, I'd say that maybe you shouldn't hit your friends with rocks, then, huh?'

`Maybe,' Draco said.

`Now, did you have his rock because you wanted it, or because you knew he wanted it?'

`I wanted it. I was playing with it.'

`Did you tell him that?'

`No,' Draco said, looking sheepish.

`Try it,' Wren sighed, got to her feet, and reached out a hand to each of them, `Let's get you out of the kitchen so we can clean you up and patch any bleeding spots, OK?'

`OK,' Harry got to his feet, his rock held firmly in hand, and reached for Wren's right hand. Draco grabbed her left, and she walked them from the room.

-*-

`Well?' Wren asked Poppy, once the children had been let free.

`They're both fine, no lasting damage,' Poppy said, looking at Wren rather askance.

`Good. I got there in time to hear Draco clout him with that rock. It was loud out in the corridor, and Harry was worried Draco'd broken his rock on his head,' Wren kicked her feet, looking up at the mediwitch, `I don't want to make them stop fighting, 'cause I really think I'da been a much saner person years ago if I'da fought more as a kid, but,' she shrugged, `I don't like see'n 'em bleed, either.'

`You could teach them some of the muggle ways of fighting -- the books say those are as much about not fighting as fighting,' Poppy said, `Although I don't know when you're supposed to start teaching them.'

`What I've learned focuses on killing people, but actual martial arts might be good for them,' Wren suddenly smiled, `All of them, actually -- we're up to twelve kids amoung the minions and henches! With that many kids I can justify putting a teacher on retainer,' Wren hopped up and gave Poppy a hug, `Thanks!'

Poppy hugged her back, laughing, `Glad I could help. I should get back, though, potions is letting out, and Snape's probably scared some second year into blowing up their cauldron.'

`Severus?' Wren asked.

Poppy nodded.

`I think I'll come visit this school of yours sometime, if that'd be OK?'

`It should be fine.'

12 Febuary 1993

`Hang onto anyone the Oblis catch,' Wren told Bellatrix, `Unless you want to take care of them, but don't feel you have to, OK?'

Bellatrix nodded, `Right.'

Wren looked at her for a moment, trying to read the younger woman's expression, then gave up, either she would have to deal with whatever rapists or murderers the Oblis turned up or she would not, `You don't have to-' she tried again.

`You could barely walk after those six yesterday. It would be nice if they could be handed over to the ministry.'

`Would you have wanted them back on the street yesterday?' Wren shuddered, and shook her head, trying to force the knowledge out for a little bit.

`No, but I don't want you dying over it, either,' Bellatrix gathered Wren into a hug, `Go to Hogwarts, have fun, hassle the students, OK?'

`Right,' Wren pulled back with a smile, `You used OK.'

`I did not.'

Wren just smiled at her and shook her head.

`Winky, Dobby!' she said firmly, once Bellatrix had looked away.

`Yes'm?' Dobby said, bouncing lightly on his toes.

Winky just curtsied.

`I'm not taking the little ones to Hogwarts, so if they get into anything, come get me there, OK?'

`Of course!' Dobby exclaimed, nodding hard.

`As you wish,' Winky said, still looking down.

`Winky,' Wren dropped to one knee in front of the elves, `You are not at fault for what your humans did.'

`But Winky helped!'

`Since you get paid now, if I tell you to do something you don't want to do, what can you do about it?'

`I can leave, or I can quit, or I can tell you no.'

`Could you tell mister Crouch or young mister Crouch no?'

`No,' Winky shook her head, `But . . . '

`It's OK,' Wren dropped a hand on Winky's shoulder, `Do a good job, and do what's right. No one should ask anything more from you.'

Wren stood, and raised agrieved eyes at Bellatrix, who gave her a hug for them. Once the elves had left the room she allowed herself a sigh, `It's not so bad the first three times you tell them.'

`Some people aren't smart enough to pretend to be OK around you,' Bellatrix said.

Wren pulled back and stared up, her hands on Bellatrix's shoulders, `Trixie,' she said, after several moments, `That's not funny.'

`But it's true,' she gave Wren a kiss on the forehead, `Alecto beat several of the henches and two of the minions up to secure her right to apparate you to Hogsmeade, so you'd better go find her.'

`She'd better not have,' Wren said, laughing, `That's my job.'

She still gave Bellatrix a look on the way out the door, pondering.

-*-

Hogsmeade was small, quaint, and tiny. About three blocks wide and twelve, Wren counted, long, with about twelve houses per block. The main, cobblestone, drag, such as it was, had shops on the lower floors, and what looked to be apartments above. Three of the buildings were three stories tall, and one four. Everything was dingy, and several of the buildings bordered vacant lots, black soot still trailed up their sides.

`Concrete can be ugly,' Wren said, `But it doesn't burn for shit.'

`That Gaudy guy you like used a lot of concrete,' Alecto answered her, `And his stuff's really pretty.'

Wren hugged her one handed and nuzzled her shoulder, `Yep. That's why I said "can."'

Halfway up the street she paused to kick a cobble back to its spot and stomp on it a bit until it settled, `Now stay,' she told it. After a moments glaring she held out her hand, and Alecto took it, leading them on towards Hogwarts.

At the gates Wren paused, wrinkled her nose, and squinted through her glasses, then stepped back, cocked her head sideways, and smiled in utter delight, `That's just utterly sick and twisted,' she said, grinning so broadly her teeth showed.

`What?' Alecto asked, taking in the utterly normal sight of Hogwarts, in its overwrought crenellated glory.

`I think it's 'cause I don't have much magic, but if I squint, or look too quickly, or cock my head just right there's this desire to go clean my sink,' she laughed, `Which even I'm not quite neurotic enough to need to do right now--'

Alecto laughed, having seen Wren's odd compulsion to clean any dirty sink by the third or fourth time she saw it.

`And it turns into a lovely ruin, complete with keep out signs that are just utterly _tempting_,' Wren smiled, `But just for a moment, and then the wards figure out I'm not a muggle, and hide it again,' Wren clapped her hands, bouncing on her toes, `I've got to learn how to do that.'

Alecto just looked at her, smiling, `Just like you need to learn how to make flying things fly.'

`Oh, right, right,' Wren pulled a little green-covered pad of paper out of her pocket, scrawled several notes with a ball-point pen, then returned both. That done, she turned and started walking backwards up the path, `Are you coming?'

-*-

Wren stood in the back, watched Professor Binns' lecture, and one by one the students dropped off to sleep. Once all of them were out she walked up to the front of the class, *clump* *clump* *clump* in her boots, and put her hand on his shoulder.

She promptly snatched it back and rubbed it on her other one to warm it, `You realize you've put your entire class to sleep, right, professor?'

The befuddled ghost turned to look at her, `Really?' then past her at the sleeping students, `So I have.'

`Why are you still here? Are you still being paid?'

`Oh, they look after my nephew Argus for me, so I keep teaching.'

`Mister Filch?'

`That's him!'

`He's paid staff, has been for years.'

`Oh,' Binns blinked, then smiled, `Guess I can quit, then.'

`Guess so.'

-*-

Arithmancy boggled Wren fairly badly, as she tried to trace the flow control of it -- it reminded her of Calculus, which she did fairly well in once she figured it out, and digital circuits, which she'd bailed on before grasping totally. Even then, the logic was odd. The fourth-years left excited and chattering, though, so _they_ apparently followed it.

Divination was nearly as bad as History -- Trelawny knew what she was teaching, but didn't know how to teach. After several painful minutes watching Wren left her to her own devices.

Potions showed that Severus had the same problem -- she knew the material but didn't know how to teach. Worse, she gave a firm impression of hating children. Wren waited, propped in the doorway, for class to let out.

Severus finally released the class with a snarled admonition to actually research their essays this time. Wren shoved herself off the doorframe with her hip, and walked to the front as the students filed out.

The last curious student drifted off with a third backwards glance before she spoke, `Do you like teaching, Miss Snape?'

Severus started, then shook her head, `No, and I don't know that I'll ever be her again.'

Wren cocked her head to one side, `You certainly seem to be an unhappy man, so,' Wren shrugged, `If you don't like teaching, why are you doing it?'

`I liked it as a student. Helping someone understand why a certain spell worked, or why it failed in a particular way, or the substitutions that work and don't work in potions, I liked that. Instead I get a roomful of dunderheads and not enough time to work with the ones who have potential.'

`A lot of them seem to still be lacking basic ideas, here,' Wren nodded towards the back of the class, `One of the kids was whipping in red stuff the directions said to fold in, but she didn't blow anything up doing it.'

`Midgen?' Severus smiled, `She's one of the better students, and is much better than most of these,' she shook her head, `So I let her play with things, and mock her when she flubs it.'

`Have you ever had any training as a teacher?'

`No, why would anyone need that?'

Wren boggled again, `Because when you understand why they're such dunderheads you can teach them not to be.'

`What?' Severus stared at her, `That's impossible.'

`That's one of the real problems with this world you live in,' Wren said, `You have no respect for hard work, and a great belief in inate ability. A much overrated belief, at that,' Wren thought for a moment, then, `Try this -- blame their failures on lack of effort and their successes on trying hard. Experience is directly proportional to equipment destroyed, all of that. Give out rewards for the most interesting failures and successes, not house points, but something interesting and tangible, candy or shiny things or potions ingredients. Don't denegrate any students based on their house or family, and don't praise anyone on that basis either.'

Severus blinked, then started writing in a rounded, loopy hand, `Could you repeat that?'

Wren slumped, hands flat on Severus's desk, and tried to give her a good class on teaching.

Kettleburn was not too horrible, and the baby manticore was _so_ cute. The huge man who'd dropped Harry off on the first of November tag-teamed Kettleburn with Wren, eventually gaining them permission to hold the creature.

Alecto watched, close to apoplectic, from a safe distance, and a little red-haired kid from a closer one. He eventually snuck in close enough to pet its furry back, `I'm Charlie, Charlie Weasley, who're you?'

`This is Harry Potter's mum, Wren,' Hagrid answered for her, `Those muggle relatives of his didn't want 'im, the horrible creatures,' he said, lightly scratching the soft spot between the manticore's sting and the next segment of her tail, which made the little creature roll onto her back in Wren's lap, and bat her feet in the air.

`How'd you become his mum, then?'

`Stole him off their doorstep at dawn, then killed four coffin suckers to keep him safe,' Wren shrugged, `Well, Malfoy killed Nott, but his widow say's that's close enough.'

`Wow!' Charlie Weasley, right there, decided she was the coolest person he'd ever met.

-*-

Wren's glasses shifted to an almost perfect mirror when Dumbledore looked at them, and she smiled up at the tall wizard.

`I seem to owe you for my history teacher having quit?'

`How long have you had that man working for no pay?' Wren started, then continued when no answer seemed forthcoming, `And how much would it cost to endow a music teacher and another potions teacher?'

The rest of the meeting went better, and Wren left after agreeing to talk to Edmund about the endowments and getting a date for the next board of govenors meeting.

15 Febuary 1993

`These ones didn't die under Veratasium,' Wren said, waving at the seven prisoners, a witch and seven wizards, `But they're grifters and other sorts of con artists, so I guess they didn't feel their crimes were bad enough for that.'

Bagnold nods, `As you say,' she said, looking at the pile of documents in her hand, and the box of penseive memories that acompanied them, `How far have you gotten in your screening?'

`We should be finished with our screenings in another couple months, and I must say that I'm quite appalled at what we've been finding. Seven out of ten have been illegally obliviated. If it is illegal, and you can catch an underage wizard floating a cake, why can't you stop this?'

`It's not that simple -- we monitor every underage witch, and can guess when there's muggles about . . . ' Bagnold trailed off at the look on Wren's face.

Wren composed her face, `So you don't monitor every underage wizard?'

Bagnold had enough sense to look ashamed, `No. There's a thousand galleon fee to be unmonitored, paid by the boy's father.'

`And witches aren't afforded the same priveledge?'

`Of course not? Why would they--'

The female prisoner spoke up, `To stop someone from forcing himself uppon her, perhaps? To stop Death Eaters from killing her muggle family?' she disolved into tears.

Wren turned back to Bagnold, `Her baby sister was thirteen.'

-*-

`She kicked!' Narcissa exclaimed, grabbing Bellatrix's hand and pressing it to her belly.

Wren smiled, pleased by the amazed expression on the young woman's face.

`Wren, Harry, where's Draco?' Bellatrix looked around the rooom, `Come feel.'

`Feel what?' Harry asked.

`Cissy's got a baby growing in her belly.'

Narcissa caught Harry's small hand and placed it on her belly, `Right there, did you feel it?'

`Wow!' Harry grinned.

Wren was more diffident, but let Bellatrix place her own hand, short and broad, against the softly curved surface. A small smile twisted at the corners of her mouth as she felt the soft flutter, `She's an active little thing already.'

`Like her genatrix,' Narcissa smiled up at Wren, laying her own more slender hand over Wren's, stroked the back of it with her thumb.

`Genatrix?' Wren asked, then blinked, `No.'

`You said to make sure they had four grandparents,' Narcissa smiled up at her.

Wren shivers, `I did,' she agreed, `I thought it took more work.'

`Hogwarts has the strongest contraceptive wards in the known world, and we still end up with pregnant witches and wizards every year. The standard model is that with enough desire for a child and enough loosened magic anyone will get pregnant.'

`The more magic, the less desire is needed, the more desire, the less magic,' Bellatrix shrugs, `Contraceptive potions are fairly long-term, so they're not very popular, and most of them are illegal.'

`Oh,' Wren caught Narcissa's hand in hers, `Why me?'

`You saved me from that,' she shivered, `You gave me my beloved back, and you're not nearly as hard on the eyes as you seem to think.'

`Oh,' Wren slipped her hand from Narcissa's, and fled at a walk.

-*-

The water's nearly cold by the time Alecto found Wren, stretched out with her shoulders in one corner of the tub, her hands folded on her belly, the pink tinge turning into a red-brown ring.

Wren opened her eyes at Alecto's gasp, `Head wounds bleed a lot. Remind me sometime not to smash mirrors with my face. I'm still not sure I've all the glass out.'

Alecto glared down at her, `Over to this side,' she said, dropping down on the edge of the tub and pulling her wand. Several minutes pass as she worked on Wren's face, then the shredded skin over her knuckles, `Does doing this make you feel better?'

`Not really,' Wren shrugged, rubbed her cheek against Alecto's tiny hand, `But it's something to do, and it's distracting.' She smiled up at Alecto, `Helps me think, sort of,' kissed her palm, `Just a dull throbbing to keep some of my mind occupied while the rest of it chews on the utter fuckwittery of the Wizarding World.'

`Oh?' Alecto leaned over to place a kiss on Wren's forehead.

`Did you know a thousand galleons can buy a boy immunity from the tracking charms on underage witches, but not a girl?'

`Yes. We never had a thousand galleons for something so foolish, but yes.'

`And the bitches wonder why we've so very many dark wizards, even without gerrymandering the rules.'

`Gerrymander?'

`Adjusting the rules to fuck specific people over,' Wren shrugged.

`Is this common?'

`It's illegal, but it happens whenever no one complains fast enough. Congresscritters,' Wren paused at Alecto's blank look, `Sorta like members of the wizengamot, but elected like ministers,' Alecto nodded, `Are chosen from a certain district, which has boundries that get redrawn every so often as people move around or whatever. There was a Senator, that's a type of congresscritter that serves a six-year term, named Gerry who adjusted his district, so he'd keep getting elected, until it looked quite like a salamander on the map. At that point people decided enough was enough and made it illegal. Apparently it was a big scandal, and they dig it out from time to time.'

`How come they don't teach any of this stuff in muggle studies?' Alecto asked before standing, stretching, and peeling off her shoes and stockings. She stepped into the tub and sat on the edge, `Brr, that's cold.'

`Not really,' Wren said, cuddling up against Alecto's leg.

`Right,' Alecto said, tracing a finger across Wren's lips, `And that's why your lips are blue.'

`Really?' Wren asked, smiling.

Alecto shook her head with a smile, and reheated the bath water.

-*-

17 Febuary 1993

Wren looked down at the letter, smiling.

`What does Mrs. Warbeck have to say?'

`Delores is still crying in happyness, Mistra is beside herself, and Celestina wants to give a concert for me. That might be useful, actually.'

7 March 1993

 

\---  
log:  
2007/Aug/2: Reading too much HP fic, and Rorschach's Blot's more-sane Shinji story, and feeling maudlin. So I wrote the first bits of this.  
2007/Aug/11: Wrote some more over the last week. Backed up to my server.  
2007/Aug/19: More.  
2007/Aug/20: More, and, typical me, the chapters seem to be growing.  
2007/Aug/21: Definately growing.  
2007/Aug/26: A bit more, but slowly  
2007/Aug/28: more, less slowly.  
2007/Aug/30: More.  
2007/Sep/21: More. Oh, and a Galleon is worth about $100 U.S. (Gold, as of Nov, 2007, is $865 an _ounce_. In the early 90s, it was $350 or so. No way is a decent-sized gold coin going to be worth $10)  
2007/Sep/23: More.  
2007/Oct/25: More. The Dumbledore confrontation is too over-the-top and overt, but I'm not sure how to fix it.  
2007/Nov/18: More. Toned down the Dumbledore a bit. Need to make myself lists of Minions and henches. And I'll take suggestions for V.A. attacks, if anyone's got any.  
2007/Nov/19: More.  
2007/Nov/20: Just a bit more.  
2007/Nov/22: A bit more. I've more to go of their Yule celebrations, so that should be written soonish.  
2007/Nov/23: Looked up the rules to Spades, -- normally both cards and deal are passed clockwise. Wren's either forgotten or decided to change it, so cards are going clockwise and the deal is going counter-clock.  
2007/Nov/26: typed up very little over the last few days. Some editing.  
2007/Nov/27: A bit more, finally back in 1993  
2007/Dec/1: More. Beginning of Feb '93. Fixed at the Nixon date.  
2007/Dec/2: More, actually. Rather surprised.  
2008/Apr/21: Tiny bit more.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Wren is, in a lot of ways, me. I was inspired by "Chicks dig giant robots" by Rorschach's Blot, and his idea of "Raised by a forum member."
> 
> When I wrote this, I thought Wren was braver than me, but she hasn't seen _The Crying Game_, or heard of Brandon Teena. She also hasn't discovered internet fanfic, and her only exposure to anime was _Robotech_, back in High School.
> 
> She spent several months in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and engaged troops, transports, and armor with accurate, devastating 155mm howitzer fire.
> 
> When she got back stateside, she ETS'd and took a plane to England where no one knew her at all. She then put on her dragon rider name before she folded her boy hat and tucked it in her cargo pocket.
> 
> The author started this 10 months into a 15 month deployment to Iraq, and was sleeping with a loaded rifle, in a tiny, single building camp surrounded by a berm, surrounded by thousands of Iraqi Army soldiers. The author returned from that deployment at the end of December, 2007, and got off a plane stateside 31 Decemeber 2007. At the time, this was one of the authors longest works ever.
> 
> The author re-read it recently -- some of the spelling is eccentric, the prose not as smooth as the author would like, but it provides an insight into who the author was a decade ago.


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